September 20/21 14:53 pm - Kirchmann 11th in Worlds TT as Canuel Rides Her Last TT
Posted by Editoress on 09/20/21
Day 2 of the Road World Championships saw new world titles awarded in the Elite Women and Under-23 Men. Leah Kirchmann was the top Canadian performer, in 11th place, followed closely by Karol-Ann Canuel in 13th. Canuel is retiring after this season, and this was the final time trial of her career, which will end with the road race on Saturday. The women raced 30.3 kilometres on a flat course between the Belgian cities of Knokke-Heist and Bruges.
Ellen van Dijk (Netherlands) won the second TT world title of her career, with a time of 36:05. She edged Switzerland's Marlen Reusser, the silver medalist for a second year in a row, and reigning Olympic champion Annemiek Van Vleuten (Netherlands). Kirchmann finished 2:34 back, with Canuel at 2:48.
"Overall, I feel satisfied with my race today and can be happy with 11th place," said Kirchmann. "The course was completely flat, fast, and not very technical, which made it challenging because there were no places to recover. I was able to execute my pacing plan to ride a steady and strong effort for the whole race."
Leah Kirchmann
"I felt that I was really flying on some sections with the help of the tailwind which led to some very high average speeds! I'm now focused on recovering well for the road race. We are a strong group of riders supported by great staff over here in Belgium, so I feel that we are ready to go for a top result next Saturday!"
Karol-Ann Canuel
Canuel, a previous world champion in the Team Time Trial who finished sixth in this event at the 2014 Worlds, and is multi-time national champion in the discipline, commented on her final experience in the race against the clock: "I was a little nervous and still wanted a good time to be proud of myself at the end. I think it went well overall and I'm still happy. I thought about it a bit at the end of the race and said to myself: "come on, these are the last pedal strokes and you can do it!"
Earlier today, in the men's Under-23 event, Canadians Raphaël Parisella finished 32nd and Francis Juneau 46th in a race won by Denmark's Johan Price-Pejtersen.
Raphaël Parisella
Francis Juneau
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