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Italy’s Filippo Ganna broke the hearts of the Flemings on the opening day of the road racing world championships in the heart of Belgian cycling with a narrow victory in the elite men’s time trial. Ganna pushed home favorite Wout van Aert to second place by just five seconds – “One too many money”, said the Belgian – with young Flemish prospect Remco Evenepoel taking home the bronze medal.
Domain specialists were favored with a pan-flat course that began with a starting ramp on Knokke-Heist beach on the North Sea coast, closing in among the canals and ornate townhouses of Bruges. . Defending champion Ganna paced his efforts to perfection over the 43.3km, setting a record speed of over 54km / h for the event, and hitting the air as he crossed the finish line just over five seconds faster than Van Aert.
Van Aert and Ganna had already experienced unforgettable seasons. The 25-year-old from Verbania, northern Italy, played a central role in winning Ineos teammate Egan Bernal at the Giro d’Italia in May, tearing the field apart on a key stage through the dirt roads of Tuscany. He also coached the Italian quartet to a last-ditch gold medal and a world record team pursuit at the Tokyo Olympics, but at the European Championship 10 days ago he was by no means certain of its shape.
“Over the past week my condition has improved a lot,” he said. “Today when I woke up I had a good feeling in my legs and in my head I was dreaming of winning today.”
His Belgian rival has managed a hat-trick of stage victories in the Tour de France – including the penultimate day against the clock and the final sprint on the Champs-Élysées – in addition to two classic victories of one day or more recently from a dominant race. in the Tour de Bretagne. He started the fastest, going seven seconds faster than Ganna at the first checkpoint, 8.3 miles away, where first race leader Evenepoel was 28 seconds slower, apparently out of the fight for gold. and money.
Van Aert is a beautifully talented all-rounder, a rider who can win in the high mountains – as he did in the Tour de France – or in a massive sprint, as he did three times in the Tour de Bretagne, and who can produce a stellar time trial that day. But he’s not a full-fledged specialist compared to the Italian, who has won 10 time trials in the last 14 months, including the five time trial stages of the last two Tours of Italy.
With a race decided with such a nice margin, it showed how Ganna evaluated her run, coming one second closer to Van Aert at the second checkpoint, with 10km to go. And in that midsection, Evenepoel also showed his skill, edging out two-time European champion Stefan Küng of Switzerland and Dane Kasper Asgreen, although the 2019 silver medalist was always more than 30 seconds slower than Van Aert and Ganna.
The defeat left Van Aert on a streak of five silver in major championships, after silver in the time trial and road race last year, silver in the world cyclo championship. -cross just down the hill in Ostend in January and silver in the road race at the Tokyo Olympics. It’s a streak that the whole of Belgium expects from him to finish with a gold medal in the road race next Sunday, while on Monday, the time trial continues with the women’s race, where the champion in title, Anna van der Breggen, is missing, but her Dutch teammate Annemiek van Vleuten should be up to the task.
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Van Aert’s Tour of Britain rival Ethan Hayter won in his first World Time Trial Championship to take eighth place, a result he felt he could build on. while the race was an emotional farewell for one of the pillars of the discipline, the German Tony Martin. , quadruple world champion, and first medalist at Mendrisio in 2009, who placed sixth in his penultimate race.
Opening day took a more painful turn with the tragic death of former professional Chris Anker Sørensen, who was scheduled to work in the Championship for Danish TV, but died on Saturday from injuries sustained when struck by a vehicle while driving. his bike to recognize the course of the time trial.
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