For a man of his stature in world testing; Ryan Mullen's ride today was a collapse in performance. He was in no mood to console himself afterwards. However, his day will come.
Ryan Mullen has said he felt he let down the Irish team in the World Championships elite men’s TT in Innsbruck today.
Very uncharacteristically, Mullen was closer to the bottom of the field that the top; finishing 49th of the 56 riders.
And afterwards he rounded on himself; delivering comments that were perhaps a bit too harsh.
Mullen won a silver medal in the Worlds TT when an U23. He was beaten to the title by less than half a second.
He was 5th in the elite Worlds two years ago, 3rd in the elite Europeans last year and 6th this year.
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His commitment when wearing the green of Ireland is never open to question.
But today none of those things were on his mind after the 52.2km TT in Innsbruck.
For a rider of his standard, his performance represented a collapse; though in bike racing these things can happen.
"I felt fine in the warm up, I felt good," he said. "And then I went down the ramp and I felt really good for the first ten minutes and I said 'today's not bad.'
"Then after ten minutes my legs and my body just said ‘no’. And I’ve no idea why.
“I had a strategy of holding certain watts on the flat. And I was way, way down on what I know I can do and what I’ve done in the past.
"Without getting into details; when I finished I was between 80 and 90 watts off what I should have done.
"If you have a bad day it’s usually within 10 to 20 watts, not 80. I don’t know (why), I’ve no idea.
“I’ve never performed that badly before at the World Championships. And I kind of feel really embarrassed about it.
"I feel like I’ve let the team down. I’m sure they’re understanding. But the athlete inside me is pretty pissed off.
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"Today was an hour and ten minutes and I went well for ten minutes. That means I had to mentally fight myself for an hour.
“Mentally it was so hard. I knew I wasn’t on a good day. I didn’t know why.
“Then I started thinking, ‘maybe it’s my power (meter), maybe it’s not working’. But then the heart rate started to drop and there was nothing I could do about it.
"It was as though I hadn’t fuelled properly; but I had. So I have no idea what caused it. And I’ve just got to put it behind me."
Roche’s reaction was different. He was 12th in this race last year but he knew coming into the test in Innsbruck his condition wasn’t great.
He would finish three places ahead of Mullen; in a race won by Rohan Dennis of Australia.
"I already knew for a couple of days that I wasn’t in the best condition at the moment," he said. "I was struggling to recover from the Vuelta and it’s been a rough week.
“I was motivated, ready; and (I) focused over the last ten days on just riding the TT bike. But unfortunately I was just empty today.
“That’s the way it happens. That’s why it's a one-day race and sometimes, for example last year, I also felt awful.
“I was pretty tired and I ended doing one of the best TTs of my career. So you know it was a bit of a gamble.
"I kind of thought that even though I felt tired that maybe with over compensation things would go good today. And it just didn’t happen.
"I think it was obvious already yesterday when I was doing my efforts on the road,” he said, adding he felt the same on the home trainer this morning.
"The problem is with the home trainer that you kind of know pretty quickly how your body is.
“So when I started off, I started on a pretty solid pace. And pretty quickly I realised that the pace I needed to hold for a result was just not going to happen.
"I think this is probably my 19th or 20th world champs and it’s always a good experience.
“You know; I’m not a TT specialist but I always try to come and represent Ireland and give it a go. And some of the years I’ve had some pretty good results.
"I’ve been 12th and 13th in the time trial in the pros. And some of the years I’ve been more average.
“But I think for me it’s important to come here and give it a go and you never know on the day."
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