Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) has beaten former champion Filippo Ganna (Italy) to win gold in the elite men's TT at the UCI World Road Championships in Scotland on a day when 19-year-old British rider Josh Tarling won bronze.
Tarling, the junior world champion last year who is now riding for Ineos Grenadiers, became the youngest ever medal winner in the TT at the Worlds while Evenepoel is the youngest ever world champion, and the first Belgian to take the title.
After 47.8km of racing, Ireland's Ryan Mullen was 19th, some 3:02 down on the winner, while compatriot Ben Healy was 26th at 3:14. Both riders were in the hot seat - for the three fastest riders to finish - at one point, with Mullen leading for a long time until the strong riders who were off later began to come through.
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Ganna and Evenepoel were very close out on the course - the eventual winner slower at the first checkpoint but then gaining in Ganna in the second part of the course, which was hillier. In the end, the winning margin was 12 seconds, with the very impressive Tarling in 3rd some 48 seconds off gold and really showing the level he has already reached.
Evenepoel said winning the TT title - after claiming road race gold in Australia last year - was a major goal for him this season. He was delighted to win and to be the first Belgian to life the world crown in the discipline, some 30 years after the TT world title race was first run, and won by Great Britain's Chris Boardman.
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“To be honest, I could ride harder and faster than we planned, I could always ride 10 or 15 watts above my pacing plan," Evenepoel said of enjoying a great day on the bike, seeing off heavyweights Ganna and Tarling, the latter 6' 4" and 78kg to Evenepoel's 5' 6" and 61kg.
"So if you know after 30 minutes that you’re still not on the limit and don’t feel the legs, you know you’re on one of those days. I knew from the second intermediate I was going faster than people and with a bit of my terrain coming with the ups and downs. But the final climb was really brutal. It really gave me an extra knife in the legs. I’m just super-proud, super happy.”
