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Reuters
BERGEN
Annemiek van Vleuten claimed an emotional world road title in the women's individual time trial on Tuesday, beating fellow Dutch rider Anna van der Breggen to the gold medal.
Little more than a year after a horrific accident in the Rio Olympics road race left her with three spinal fractures, the 34-year-old powered round the hilly 21.1km course in Bergen to win by a comfortable margin.
Despite rain making the course slippery, she averaged 43.8kmh for a time of 28 minutes 50.35 seconds.
Van Der Breggen, whose road race gold in Rio was overshadowed by the injuries sustained by her team mate who had been leading when she slammed into a deep gutter on a descent, was 12 seconds slower.
Australian Katrin Garfoot was third, 18.93 seconds behind.
Last year's champion Amber Neben of the United States could only manage 11th, while Dutch rider Ellen Van Dijk, who was second last year in Doha, was fifth.
Only five riders got within a minute of van Vleuten's time.
"I can't believe it,"a tearful Van Vleuten said."To be world champion in the TT, I never thought it would be, but this year I've started to believe.
"The downs make the ups more beautiful, makes it really special. It was hard because it started pouring with rain and I lost some seconds on the descents. I thought the weather would disturb my race form, but I focussed on what I do."
Van der Breggen was the second of the 54 riders to start and it looked as though she might take the gold as Van Vleuten was behind on the first two intermediate splits.
However Van Vleuten put together a superb final 4km to go fastest on the scoreboard.
Eighteen riders followed her, including many of the pre-race favourites, but none of them mastered the conditions as well as Van Vleuten who took the rainbow jersey.
Froome looks to cap great year with world title
Chris Froome has a chance to end his best ever season on yet another high when he tackles the hilly world time-trial championships course in Bergen on Wednesday.
A punishing final 3.4km climb on the 31km course with gradients reaching 10 percent will favour specialist climbers like Froome over the freight-train time-trialists like four-time world champion Tony Martin.
Many people believe the climb will almost certainly rule out the more regular powerhouse racers against the clock leaving Froome, Giro d'Italia champion Tom Dumoulin, Australia's Rohan Dennis and Ilnur Zakarin of Russia to battle for honours.
German Martin, for one, is angry that his title defence has been compromised.
"The finale of the 'parcours' (course) of the individual time-trial is way too hard for me," said the 32-year-old, winner in 2011, 2012, 2013 and last year.
"I'll be the outgoing world champion and so I'll still give it everything and I'll fight hard but I know I've got very little chance of success."
The course should suit Dumoulin and Froome, the silver and bronze medallists at last year's Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, who are both world class time-trialists as well as strong climbers.
Froome has already enjoyed an incredible year, winning the Tour de France for the fourth time and Vuelta a Espana for the first time.
