Dillon in action earlier this year in the US in her National TT Champ strip
National Time Trial (TT) Champion, Olivia Dillon has said while she enjoyed her ride at the World TT Championships yesterday, Tuesday, she felt a faster start and some more racing in recent weeks would have seen her perform a bit better.
“I felt good and stuck to my plan but in hindsight I may have been too conservative early and wished I‘d ramped up the effort sooner,” she told stickybottle.
“I’m disappointed with the actual placing and getting into the 20s would have been satisfying,” she added of her 33rd finishing position.
“My preparation for the Worlds has been really good with hard training and dialling my position but I was just lacking some high level racing in the last few weeks. The bulk of National Level US racing ends in early August, which is a problem. And I tried to get to Europe but it didn’t work out.”
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She described the race yesterday as “a great course”.
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“It had a bit of everything, with the start on cobbles to a flat straight road for a few kilometres to a climb and then rolling terrain with technical twists and turns through small Dutch towns into a fast descent that launched you onto the Cauberg. The 2 kilometres to the finish after the Cauberg is so hard and painful. The field here is incredibly talented and deep and some of them put up some pretty amazing performances. A lot of the top 10 have either won or medalled at the World Champs before.”
She added even the top 20 was full of elite riders with a huge international TT pedigree, in many cases over a long number of years. Dillon also paid tribute to winner, Germany’s Judith Ardnt, saying her victory yesterday had brought to a close a “phenomenal career”.
Dillon, who rides the elite women’s road race with Siobhan Horgan on Saturday, has echoed the views of junior rider Ryan Mullen in saying the Irish camp set-up in Valkenburg is second to none and that she was delighted to get the opportunity to compete.
“The Cycling Ireland crew here are top quality; you just couldn’t get better support; everyone is excited to be here.”
Elite Women’s World TT Champs, 4.1km
1 Judith Arndt (Germany) 32 mins 26.46secs
2 Evelyn Stevens (United States) @33.77
3 Linda Melanie Villumsen (New Zealand) @40.57
4 Emma Pooley (Great Britain) @49.33
5 Eleonora Van Dijk (Netherlands) @54.01
6 Ina Teutenberg (Germany) @1:33.74
7 Amber Neben (United States) @1:43.42
8 Trixi Worrack (Germany) @1:44.56
9 Martina Sablikova (Czech Republic) @1:59.44
10 Shara Gillow (Australia) @1:59.75
33 Olivia Dillon (Ireland) 0:03:46.87
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