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Ryan Mullen has always been world class, but now he’s world class in elite pro cycling rather than the U23 ranks after an epic TT at the Worlds, above (Photo: Sean Rowe)
By Philip Cassidy
Ryan Mullen has finished fifth in his debut elite world championships time-trial today, Wednesday, the 22-year old completing the 40-kilometre test against the clock in a quite astonishing time of 46:04.
The Irishman was 1’21” behind German powerhouse Tony Martin who equalled Fabian Cancellara’s record of four world titles while reigning champion Vasil Viryienka (Belarus) and Jonathan Castroviejo of Spain were 45 seconds and 1’10” down, respectively.
In fact, take the winner out of it and Mullen’s deficit to Kiryienka is only 36 seconds – a far cry from the 2’41” he conceded to the Team Sky man in last year’s European Games in Azerbaijan.
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Mullen rolled down the ramp as one of the early starts (11.46am Irish time) and from the first kilometres it was clear he was on a good day as he quickly settled into his rhythm and looked rock-solid.
By the first intermediate checkpoint he was over 30 seconds clear of his nearest challenger and when he was exactly that margin ahead of Polish star Marcin Bialblocki it was apparent a seriously good time was in the making.
Nicolas Roche came home in 30th having finished 4th last weekend in the TTT with Team Sky (Photo: Sean Rowe)
That he was ahead of Jos Van Emden (Netherlands) and Reto Hollenstein (Switzerland) served to underline the fact that a top 10 was becoming a real possibility.
The first major indicator of how good he did was when he had 53 seconds to spare on the aforementioned Bialoblocki with Yves Lampaert (Belgium) losing 23 seconds to his younger adversary.
Mullen coped exceptionally well with the scorching temperatures and handled the wind very well and by the time he came to the finishing line he had all but emptied himself.
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In fact, crossing the line he appeared to be in all kinds of pain as he wavered across the road momentarily.
When he gathered himself and took the hotseat he knew it’d be a long afternoon and having endured the same thing in Ponferrada two years ago he knew better than to get too excited.
But one by one the challengers came and went, with the more established named stepping up as the afternoon progressed.
Primoz Roglic (Slovenia), Taylor Phinney (USA) and Luke Durbridge (Australia) were among a clutch of ‘second-tier’ testers and each were told they’d fallen well short of Mullen’s benchmark.
Ryan Mullen looked like he may make into onto the podium but in the end Tony Martin won for Germany, with Vasil Kiryienka of Belarus in 2nd and Jonathan Castroviejo of Spain in 3rd (Photo: Sirotti)
Mullen will partner Phinney at Cannondale-Drapac next year and today, Mullen took that notable scalp by exactly one minute.
Nicolas Roche was another big top-10 contender today and he rolled down the ramp a couple of hours after Mullen and though he did a really good time of 47:59 , he was under two minutes behind the flying Mullen.
TV cameras shot to Mullen all afternoon who was now enjoying the moment in the spotlight but he knew better than anyone that his time would be short-lived.
And in the space of a few minutes he went from first to fourth when first Maciej Bodnar (Poland) bettered him by five seconds and Jonathan Castroviejo went six seconds faster than him.
Tony Martin then did his thing which edged Mullen into fourth and though Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) and Rohan Dennis (Australia) were expected to relegate Mullen further down, the Irishman’s time held as they were 40 and 6 seconds slower, respectively.
Kiryienka battled bravely to retain his title from Richmond last year but he had no answer to Martin who at 31 years of age, still looks as fresh as he was when he won his first title in 2011.
We’ll have Mullen for an interview when he draws breath.
World Championships, Doha
Wed, Oct 12th: Elite Men's TT (40km)
1 Tony Martin (Germany) 0:44:42.99
2 Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus) 0:00:45.05
3 Jonathan Castroviejo Nicolas (Spain) 0:01:10.91
4 Maciej Bodnar (Poland) 0:01:16.77
5 Ryan Mullen (Ireland) 0:01:21.75
6 Rohan Dennis (Australia) 0:01:27.12
7 Yves Lampaert (Belgium) 0:01:45.11
8 Jos Van Emden (Netherlands) 0:01:45.41
9 Reto Hollenstein (Switzerland) 0:01:51.51
10 Bob Jungels (Luxembourg) 0:01:56.59
11 Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) 0:02:01.51
12 Alex Dowsett (Great Britain) 0:02:11.08
13 Martin Toft Madsen (Denmark) 0:02:11.42
14 Marcin Bialoblocki (Poland) 0:02:15.30
15 Taylor Phinney (United States Of America) 0:02:21.68
16 Anton Vorobyev (Russian Federation) 0:02:22.67
17 Stefan Küng (Switzerland) 0:02:25.04
18 Luke Durbridge (Australia) 0:02:28.34
19 Andriy Grivko (Ukraine) 0:02:34.95
20 Nelson Oliveira (Portugal) 0:02:35.60
30 Nicolas Roche (Ireland) 0:03:17.57
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