Irish cyclist Ryan Mullen on his way to bronze in the elite TT at the European Championships last year. Changes to the format will suit him perfectly in his quest to take a European title.
Ryan Mullen given boost with Euro Champs changes
Having already pinpointed the European Championships TT as one of his goals for the 2018 season, future changes to that event look set to suit Ryan Mullen.
The distance for all of the time trials at the Europeans is to become uniform. All of the tests will be run over the same, shorter, course.
The race against the clock for the elite men was almost 50km at last year's Europeans. But from next year that will be reduced to between 20km and 30km.
Having cut his teeth riding 10 mile TTs and always favouring those shorter distances, the changes in format play into Mullen’s hands.
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The Irish road and TT champion was 3rd in the Euros last year. Still aged just 23 years, Mullen was 5th in the elite TT at the World Championships two years ago.
Furthermore, he won silver in junior test at the Europeans in 2012. He also claimed a silver in U23 TT at the Worlds in 2015. And he was 4th in the Europeans test that year.
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Already this year he has won the TT stage at the Vuelta a San Juan in Argentina.
And after that victory - on a course of 14.4km - the Trek-Segafredo man confirmed such distances were perfect for him.
“When I saw this course a few weeks ago I was actually really happy with it,” he said at the time.
“This distance and this type of terrain is really good for me.”
His winning margin - of a huge 23 seconds - over Filippo Ganna (UAE Team Emirates) underlined how well the shorter distance suits him.
The European Cycling Union recently confirmed the TTs will be between 20km and 30km at its championships from next year.
Road races also shorter at Euros
As well as short TTs, the road races are also being reduced in distance. The road distance will be between 50km and 70km for female juniors.
There will be a race of between 70km to 100km for U23 women. The elite women will race between 100km and 120km.
In the men’s races the juniors will race for between 100km and 120km. Moreover, the U23 men will do 120km to 150km and the elite men 150km to 180km.
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