The power generated by the best riders in the recent U23 TT at the European Road Championships is already as big as WorldTour pros despite some of them still being teenagers.
By Philipp Diegner, SevereCoaching.com
The U23 Time Trial (TT) at the European Road Championships featured some of the most hopeful talents in cycling.
Riders like Lennard Kämna (Germany), Filippo Ganna (Italy) and Remi Cavagna (France) are very likely to become major contenders in World Tour Races in the coming years.
Accordingly, their performances in a single TT are already on a par with the elite pro riders.
To compete for an U23 podium spot, riders needed to power outputs significantly exceeding 400W for around 35min.
Second placed Italian Filippo Ganna, who also became elite pursuit World Champion on the track earlier this year and won U23 Paris-Roubaix just weeks later, rode with an average of 460W for 34:29min.
Advertisement
His normalised power, on the hilly course around Plumelec, amounted to 477W; that’s 5.82W/kg for the full TT - he is clearly a huge talent and was in the Italian team pursuit line-up for the Rio Olympics.
Kamna now already has two European TT titles and an a world title in the discipline to his name. Still only aged 20 years, he looks to have a huge future (Photo: Sirotti)
Local Talent Rémi Cavagna put out 5.77W/kg (444W) normalised for a time just 5 seconds slower to take third place.
Aged 21 years, Cavagna is the French U23 TT champion and is currently plying his trade with Etixx-QuickStep.
Related News
Particularly impressive, silver medal winner Ganna was able to gain 17s on Cavagna on the last climb by riding at 517W for 5:30min.
That is an immense effort on a climb near the end of what was already a near flat out effort.
How do these performances compare to current TT specialists at World Tour Level?
A look at Tobias Ludvigsson (Giant-Alpecin) during the recent TT at the Vuelta a Espana proves the quality of these U23 riders.
Click on image for larger, easy to read version
Ludvigsson completed the stage with 433W (5.77W/kg) in 47:57min. Keep in mind that while this test against the clock was a bit longer, it was also less hilly.
The numbers in the TT give us a pretty accurate idea of the threshold (FTP) of the well-placed riders.
They are between 410-460W and therefore in the range of 5.4-5.7W/kg. As a framework, a very good cat 2 rider will usually reach an FTP around 4.5W/kg.
The U23 Euros TT title winner Kamna is a 20-year-old specialist against the watch and won the junior TT title at the World Road Championships two years ago.
And he claimed gold at the European Championships in the junior TT, also in 2014.
Kamna was well ahead of the rest, blasting around the 24.5km course in Plumelec in a time of 33:58.87, in an average speed of 43.25km per hour during his ride 10 days ago.
You can see our report on the race from the day by following this link. It featured Ireland's Eddie Dunbar (6th) and Michael O'Loughlin (15th) though we have no data for them.
Sept 14th-18th European Road Champs
Plumelec, France
Wed, Sept 14th: U23 Men’s TT (24.5km)
1 KAMNA Lennard GERMANY 33’59″87 43,256 km/h
2 GANNA Filippo ITALY 30″
3 CAVAGNA Remi FRANCE 35″
4 ERMENAULT Corentin FRANCE 50″
5 VAN HOOYDONCK Nathan BELGIUM 51″
6 DUNBAR Eddie IRELAND 01’00”
7 REKITA Szymon POLAND 01’18”
8 NYCH Artem RUSSIAN FEDERATION 01’20”
9 GEOGHEGAN HART Tao GREAT BRITAIN 01’39”
10 LEYSEN Senne BELGIUM 01’41”
11 PELIKAN Janos HUNGARY 01’53”
12 FOSS Tobias NORWAY ‘ ‘
13 GAMPER Patrick AUSTRIA 01’54”
14 TSCHERNOSTER Jan GERMANY 01’55”
15 OLOUGHLIN Michael IRELAND 02’04”
16 CARBONI Giovanni ITALY 02’05”
17 KASPERKIEWICZ Przemyslaw POLAND 02’06”
18 OVERLAND Bjornar Vevatne NORWAY 02’07”
19 SPENGLER Lukas SWITZERLAND 02’11”
20 EENKHOORN Pascal NETHERLANDS ‘ ‘
21 PENKO Izidor SLOVENIA 02’14”
22 NEILANDS Krists LATVIA 02’15”
23 FRIESECKE Gian SWITZERLAND 02’29”
24 OLIVEIRA Ivo PORTUGAL 02’32”
25 SERRANO RODRIGUEZ Gonzalo SPAIN 02’41”
26 HALME Sasu FINLAND 02’44”
27 GAVARS Eriks-Toms LATVIA 02’50”
28 DUIYNOV Vladislav RUSSIAN FEDERATION 03’06”
29 GOLDSTEIN Omer ISRAEL 03’09”
30 ANDERBERG Hampus SWEDEN 03’12”
31 LUTENCO Ivan MOLDAVIA 03’14”
32 WIRTGEN Tom LUXEMBOURG ‘ ‘
33 DIBBEN Jonathan GREAT BRITAIN 03’17”
34 ASANOV Enver AZERBAIJAN 03’34”
35 BOUZAS REY Martin SPAIN 03’46”
36 MILTIADIS Andreas CYPRUS 03’47”
37 GENIETS Kevin LUXEMBOURG 03’59”
38 SAMLI Feritcan TURKEY 04’06”
39 FAGLUM KARLSSON Marcus SWEDEN 04’07”
40 LANGELLOTTI Victor MONACO 04’09”
41 RYBARUK Kostiantyn UKRAINE 04’49”
42 YECHEZKEL Aviv ISRAEL 05’01”
43 BOZIC Jon SLOVENIA 05’04”
44 MAOMA Silver ESTONIA 05’17”
45 ABAY Burak TURKEY 05’21”
46 PETROVSKI Andrej MACEDONIA 05’37”
47 LASINIS Vennatas LITHUANIA 05’40”
48 KLEPIKOV Illya UKRAINE 05’41”
49 BENIUSIS Justas LITHUANIA 06’05”
50 BELLAN Juraj SLOVAKIA (Slovak Republic) 06’35”
Topics
