Filippo Ganna has retained his TT world champion's crown after beating Wout van Aert to the title on the opening day of the UCI World Road Championships in Belgium.
Ireland's Ryan Mullen placed 33rd at 4:12 while compatriot Marcus Christie was in 39th place at 5:20.
While huge crowds on the roadside cheered on home favourites Van Aert and Remco Evenepoel, the two Belgians had to be content with silver and bronze today as Ganna was just too good.
The Italian and the silver medal winner, Van Aert, were head and shoulders above everyone else in the field. The race was won in the fastest average speed in the history of the TT world title race; 54.370km per hour.
That broke the previous highest average speed, of 53.691km per hour, by Germany's Tony Martin in Doha in 2016; the four-time champion who was 6th today in what is his last week as a professional cyclist.
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Ganna went around the flat 43.3km course from Knokke-Heist to Bruges in a time of 47:47. He judged his effort to perfection. He stayed in touch with Van Aert early in the race and then slightly pulled away from him in the closing stages, though there was nothing in it.
Ganna claimed the title by just five seconds from Van Aert, who was less than one second faster than the Italian at the intermediate check. After the top two, the gaps were much bigger; Evenepoel 44 seconds down in 3rd place.
Ganna was beaten by Swiss rider Stefan Küng just the week before last in the TT at the European Championships in Trento in his native Italy. However, he bounced back in style today to win the gold and take his second world title, after also winning Olympic gold in the team pursuit in Tokyo last month.
"In one week my condition has come up really well," Ganna said after his winning ride today. "After a short camp at altitude I did the European Championships but the legs just didn't work. And then I thought 'maybe I can't arrive at the Worlds in good shape'.
"But today when I woke up I had a good feeling in the legs. And I had the dream to defend the title again today and to win this jersey again," adding winning the title today was a major goal.
More to come.
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