The men’s UCI World Championship Individual Time Trail went relatively as expected with Italian fast man Filippo Ganna unseating two time reigning champion, and teammate, Rohan Dennis.
Some think Ganna taking the win comes out of the blue, however, that’s because most of Ganna’s damange is done inside the velodrome where he already has 4 World Title’s against his name. Having just won the ITT at Tirreno-Adriatico over Rohan Dennis and Geraint Thomas, he jumped up the board as favorite and he delivered the goods today. A monster performance from start to finish, he had the fatest time at the only time-check and held onto it through the finish line. It was actually teammate Geraint Thomas who held the hot seat for most of the day despite racing the ITT circuit without the aid of his bike computer, ultimately finishing 4th overall. It was the Belgian Wout Van Aert who showed us that the Tour de France is no match for his legs, seemingly unbothered by the 3,366Km’s the tour put into his legs riding to 2nd place today and reinforcing him as a favorite for Sundays road race.
Rounding out the podium was Stefan Kung, a deserving medalist who is 4 time reigning ITT champion of switzerland and 4 time medalist in the world championships at the TTT. Stefan won two combativity awards at this years Tour de France (stages 10,14) before withdrawing to focus on todays race. Rohan Dennis, two time defending champion had the 2nd fastest time at the time check but could not hold on for the victory, or even the podium, finishing 5th. It’s unclear what’s next for Dennis.
The disapointment of the day was definitely Tom Dumoulin who finished 10th at 1:14 back from Ganna. The course did not suit him perfectly but he was still outperformed by those who beat head to head in the stage 20 TT at the tour and not a great result for the former world champion.
Overall a great result and great omen for Ineos and in Geraint Thomas in particular as he eyes the start of the Giro D’Italia next weekend. This years Giro features three ITT’s where Thomas will look to put a dent into his foes. The Giro both starts, and ends, with an ITT.