Ben Healy has said he was potentially
aiming for a medal in yesterday’s elite men’s TT at the European Championships
in Germany but was still quite happy with his 6th place ride.
The 21-year-old is developing as a very
exciting attacking rider, with TT ability just one of the strings to his bow,
and decided to forego last Sunday’s road race at the Europeans in favour of
full focus on the race against the clock.
In the end, after 24km of
racing in Fürstenfeldbruck, he was 6th of the 35-rider
field and some 56 seconds down on Stefan Bissegger, the Swiss
rider who took gold and is Healy’s team mate at EF Education-EasyPost.
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“I set out at a pretty hard pace to try and medal today, and I didn’t quite have the legs for that but held on until the end and still put in a really good performance and a did really nice result,” the first-year World Tour rider said.
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“I kind of had the idea in my head after my national championships ride, we run the numbers and it was a pretty good performance. I came here with medals in mind potentially and that’s what I was gunning for today. But to come away with 6th is still a really respectable performance."
Healy added there were big groups of cycling fans on the harder climbs on the course, saying they gave him a lift along the way. He explained he was very happy to be in the hot seat - as leader of the TT - for a period after his ride and hoped to come back again and aim for the top step on the podium.
“It was pretty awesome, especially in an elite time trial sitting in the number one seat for as long as I did. You kind of have an idea that the faster guys go at the end and they’re going to knock you off but it’s super nice being up there."
