Hammering to a dominant success in the 57.86 kilometre test, Tony Martin clocked up his third consecutive Elite men’s time trial title today at the world championships in Florence. The German rider repeated his triumphs of 2011 and 2012, beating Britain’s Bradley Wiggins by 46.09 seconds and Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) by 48.34.
In doing so, he closed in on Cancellara’s record of four TT championship wins.
“It’s the same podium as in 2011, but this time there was much more pressure on me,” said Martin. “Pressure doesn’t scare me though, on the contrary, it motivates me. The course? It was good that I’d already seen it during the Team Time Trials. It was one hour of race ran on the limits. Luckily I had no problems and once I found out that I was faster by forty seconds, I just enjoyed the last kilometres.”
As Martin noted, the placings echoed that of his first victory. Two years ago, Wiggins and Cancellara again finished second and third behind him, although on that occasion he was even further ahead.
Cancellara lost out on silver then when he misjudged a corner and hit a barrier, remaining upright but being delayed, and while there was no such mishap this time, Wiggins again overhauled him close to the end.
“I’m quite satisfied with this silver medal: I did the best I could, both while training and today,” said Wiggins, who beat Martin to win the Olympic TT title last year. “This season I had to start right from the bottom. It wasn’t easy but I can say I did it. I lost to a rider who deserved to win. It was a very long race, I tried to be constant and I think I managed to do so.”
Cancellara said several times this year that the worlds TT wasn’t a target for him. He indicated that he had changed his focus to one day races and that the road race on Sunday would be his big goal.
More recently he had shown a growing interest in going for what would have been his fifth gold medal. He took encouragement from his victory over Martin and others in the Vuelta time trial, but today he wasn’t able to match the German.
He started fast and was up on Wiggins for almost the entire race, but faded towards the end and slipped back into the bronze medal position.
The road race will remain his top focus, but for now he said he wanted to unwind and to pause before turning on his concentration again.
“I accepted this battle against the clock, I was serene; this race has been an hour of pleasure, but also an hour of pain,” he said. “Now I want to spend some time with my family and with my team. This medal is a good result, it will push me to do better on Sunday, but for the moment I’d rather not talk about the road races.”
As frustrated as he will be to miss out on the win – and, indeed, on silver – the riders who were just off the podium will also ponder what might have been. Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus) took fourth, but was one minute 26.01 seconds back. That may help him to accept the result better than if he had been a handful of seconds away from third place.
American rider Taylor Phinney may be more frustrated, given that he was second last year. He dropped his water bottle early on and had to ride almost the entire race without it. He ended up fifth, two minutes and eight seconds behind Martin, but will rebuild and could well go on to take the rainbow jersey in the future.
Danish rider Rasmus Quaade (Denmark) rode well to take sixth, 2 mins 36.33 seconds back, while multiple Italian champion Marco Pinotti was a further five and a half seconds down in seventh. As he wrote in his blog on VeloNation prior to the race, he had expected Martin, Wiggins, Cancellara and Phinney to ride well on the flat course, describing them as the top favourites.
While he would have liked to have finished higher, he’s likely to accept the result for what it is: a solid showing by a rider who is lighter than the medallists, and who would have preferred a lumpier course.
More to follow soon…
World road race championships, Italy:
Elite men’s time trial, Montecatini Terme to Florence:
1, Tony Martin (Germany) 57.86 kilometes in 1 hour 5 mins 36.65 secs
2, Bradley Wiggins (Great Britain) at 46.09 secs
3, Fabian Cancellara (Switzerland) at 48.34
4, Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus) at 1 min 26.01
5, Taylor Phinney (United States of America) at 2 mins 8
6, Rasmus Christian Quaade (Denmark) at 2 mins 36.33
7, Marco Pinotti (Italy) at 2 mins 41.92
8, Adriano Malori (Italy) at 2 mins 51.07
9, Gustav Larsson (Sweden) at 2 mins 58.47
10, Kanstantsin Siutsou (Belarus) at 2 mins 59.54
11, Jan Barta (Czech Republic) at 3 mins 7
12, Rohan Dennis (Australia) at 3 mins 9.33
13, Nicolas Roche (Ireland) at 3 mins 13.35
14, Jonathan Castroviejo Nicolas (Spain 3 mins 13.78
15, Nelson Filipe Santos Simoes Oliveira (Portugal) at 3 mins 14.43
16, Kristof Vandewalle (Belgium) at 3 mins 17.15
17, Richie Porte (Australia) at 3 mins 22.82
18, Vladimir Gusev (Russian Federation) at 3 mins 28.46
19, Dmitriy Gruzdev (Kazakhstan) at 3 mins 35.95
20, Bert Grabsch (Germany) at 3 mins 41.01
21, Jesse Sergent (New Zealand) at 3 mins 45.91
22, Sylvain Chavanel (France) at 3 mins 48.41
23, Aleksejs Saramotins (Latvia) at 3 mins 56.32
24, Michal Kwiatkowski (Poland) at 3 mins 59.07
25, Niki Terpstra (Netherlands) at 4 mins .83
26, Carlos Ivan Oyarzun Guinez (Chile) at 4 mins 6.45
27, Lieuwe Westra (Netherlands) at 4 mins 6.54
28, Maciej Bodnar (Poland) at 4 mins 18.20
29, Jérémy Roy (France) at 4 mins 27.21
30, Riccardo Zoidl (Austria) at 4 mins 39.57
31, Serghei Tvetcov (Republic of Moldova) at 4 mins 47.33
32, Ignatas Konovalovas (Lithuania) at 4 mins 49.80
33, Bob Jungels (Luxembourg) at 4 mins 58.57
34, Nikolay Mihaylov (Bulgaria) at 4 mins 59.10
35, Luis Leon Sanchez Gil (Spain 5 mins 4.78
36, Tobias Ludvigsson (Sweden) at 5 mins 7.12
37, Matthias Brandle (Austria) at 5 mins 11.12
38, Patrick Gretsch (Germany) at 5 mins 14.23
39, Tiago Machado (Portugal) at 5 mins 28.63
40, Ilnur Zakarin (Russian Federation) at 5 mins 34.37
41, Alex Dowsett (Great Britain 5 mins 47.23
42, Reinardt Janse Van Rensburg (South Africa) at 5 mins 52.74
43, Alex Rasmussen (Denmark) at 5 mins 56.91
44, Ioannis Tamouridis (Greece) at 6 mins
45, Andriy Vasylyuk (Ukraine) at 6 mins 4.45
46, Andrew Talansky (United States of America) at 6 mins 5.19
47, Matej Jurco (Slovakia) at 6 mins 15.31
48, Alexey Lutsenko (Kazakhstan) at 6 mins 19.04
49, Thomas De Gendt (Belgium) at 6 mins 25.48
50, Kristijan Koren (Slovenia) at 6 mins 25.55
51, Reto Hollenstein (Switzerland) at 6 mins 26.12
52, Rafaa Chtioui (Tunisia) at 6 mins 30.86
53, Gert Joeaar (Estonia) at 6 mins 49.14
54, Daniel Teklehaimanot (Eritrea) at 6 mins 49.28
55, Jay Robert Thomson (South Africa) at 6 mins 52.88
56, Sam Bewley (New Zealand) at 7 mins .02
57, King Lok Cheung (Hong Kong, China) at 7 mins 1.57
58, Leandro Messineo (Argentina) at 7 mins 23.33
59, Gediminas Bagdonas (Lithuania) at 7 mins 38.30
60, Hyeong Min Choe (Korea) at 7 mins 44.62
61, Mykhaylo Kononenko (Ukraine) at 7 mins 46.86
62, Muradjan Halmuratov (Uzbekistan) at 7 mins 51.74
63, Spas Gyurov (Bulgaria) at 7 mins 56.99
64, Samuel Pökälä (Finland) at 8 mins 11.30
65, Elchin Asadov (Azerbaijan) at 8 mins 21.39
66, Andrei Nechita (Romania) at 8 mins 30.77
67, Rafael Infantino Abreu (Colombia) at 9 mins 14.83
68, David Albos Cavaliere (Andorra) at 9 mins 40.10
69, Meran Russan (Eritrea) at 9 mins 41.58
70, Jose Ragonessi (Ecuador) at 9 mins 43.75
71, Segundo Navarrete (Ecuador) at 9 mins 51.49
72, Zhupa Eugert (Albania) at 9 mins 54.57
73, Jiyong Kang (Korea) at 10 mins 59.52
74, Uri Martins (Mexico) at 11 mins 44.67
75, Ahmed Albourdainy (Qatar) at 12 mins 11.70
76, Gustavo Mino (Paraguay) at 15 mins 13.21
77, Nazir Jaser (Syrian Arab Republic) at 15 mins 14.40