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2023 World ITT Champs

2023 World ITT Champs

12th Jan 2024

It’s one week on from the time trials at Super Worlds. Worlds always bring out some of the year’s best performances, and the year’s best tech to boot. In this article we’re going to give you a quick reminder of both the men’s, and the women’s race.

Image by: @visualsofharry

Just north of Glasgow in the small town of Stirling, the course looked relatively simple on paper for the women. 36.9km in length with the odd rolling hill, there was nothing much to take note of, that is until the final kilometre. The final kilometre being a steep climb up to Stirling Castle. It can make or break your race.

The Womens ITT World Champs

Six. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. The time it has taken for you to read up until here, is about the time Grace Brown was from a Rainbow Jersey. Five point six seven seconds to be exact.

Alongside Brown, it was Chloe Dygert and Marlen Resusser who were the pre race favourites. With Reusser coming off a crash in the Mixed Relay and Dygert reportedly being sick, it seemed to be an open race.

Dygert quickly took control. 17 seconds up at Time Check 1, 31 seconds at Time Check 2 and then 25 seconds at Time Check 3. It was Dygert’s race to lose, the American won the rainbows last when Worlds were in the UK back in 2019, and was set to double up.

Dygert sitting in the hot-seat, Brown came storming up the final climb. It was agonisingly close, even more so considering it must feel like a repeat of 2022 when she was a mere 12-seconds from the rainbows.

Image by: @visualsofharry

In Brown’s own words:



“I feel like I could have got that six seconds somewhere but at the end I really had nothing left to give”
—Grace Brown

Grace Brown wasn’t the only athlete using the Sync cockpit in the women’s race. In her first year pro, Georgie Howe rode to 10th place. Lizzie Holden and Olivia Baril came home in 14th and 19th place respectively.

Image by: @visualsofharry

The Mens ITT World Champs

It was a who’s who of time trial talent competing for the men’s crown. On paper, Worlds should always have the strongest start field of the year, but given its location in the calendar that’s not always the case. With this being the “Super Worlds” and so close after the Tour de France, things were a little different.

Remco Evenepoel, Wout van Aert and Filippo Ganna were the three favourites on the day, with the men’s course being 10km longer than the women’s.

To little surprise, the little Belgian, Remco Evenepoel brought rainbows home with a 12-second gap to Hour Record holder Ganna. The young Brit, Josh Tarling rounded out the podium @ 48 seconds back. The average age of the podium being just 23 years old. It was the American National Champion, Brandon McNulty who pulled out the surprise ride of the day, finishing just off the podium in 4th place. McNulty has pedigree in the race against the clock, a former World Junior Champion and a Bronze and Silver medallist as a U23.

Image by: @visualsofharry

Wout van Aert had to settle for fifth, and Stefan Kung for 12th. It’s telling, that although going in as favourites, both of these riders finished in the Top 5 of the crazy road race the week before. It’s impossible to believe that it didn’t take something out of them. In a normal Worlds, the time trial is always before the road race, Super Worlds is a little different.

If you were thinking that you saw a lot of EVO PROs in the race, you wouldn’t be wrong. Jay Vine (AUS), Pogacar (SLO), Bjerg (DEN), Almeida (POR), Sexton (NZ), McNulty (USA), Craddock (USA and Gibbons (RSA) were all on our products.

Image by: @visualsofharry

Super Worlds, love them or loathe them, it was a mini-Olympics of just cycling. As a cycling fan, you were able to turn on the TV for those 10 days and watch people compete on bikes. MTB fans were watching time trials, road racing fans taking an interest in BMX. It’d be a bit much to have it every year, but a Super Worlds every four is something to get excited for.

Credits

Images by: Zac Williams Photography @z_w_photography

Images by: Harry Talbot @visualsofharry

About the author

Joe Laverick’s cycling introduction was via the British time-trial scene, since starting the sport, he has been all about speed. He’s a freelance writer and privateer racer who mixes road, time trial and gravel racing. To this day, he remains one of the only riders on the planet to have beat Remco Evenepoel in a time trial.