Road World Championships: Tobias Foss shocks favourites in men’s time trial
19.09.2022 - 02:59
/ msn.com
recent Vuelta a España winner Remco Evenepoel and defending world time-trial champion Filippo Ganna. Related: Ellen van Dijk pips Grace Brown to win Road World Championships opener These were the riders expected to triumph in Wollongong. Not Foss.
The Norwegian has a reasonable palmarès: he won the Tour de l’Avenir in 2019, a race known for anointing future stars, won the road race and time-trial titles at last year’s Norwegian championships and finished ninth overall at the 2021 Giro d’Italia. But compared to the time-trial pedigree of Ganna and co, Foss had not even been considered among the pre-race favourites. Yet one by one, the final four failed to better the Team Jumbo–Visma rider’s pace, of 40 minutes and two seconds – averaging a rapid 51.
3km per hour across the course. Küng came the closest, only 2. 9 seconds away, to take the silver medal.
Evenepoel continued his recent Vuelta form to finish third, nine seconds back. But when Ganna crossed the line – a two-time world champion in the discipline, a Tokyo gold medallist on the track, a cycling star soon to take on the hour record – the Italian was, remarkably, nearly a minute back. And so Foss smiled, laughed, slapped his face and roared.
A remarkable win, an unexpected win, a win for the ages. With his triumph, Foss became the first-ever Norwegian to win the world time trial title. He joins Thor Hushovd, winner of the road race at the 2010 world championships (also held in Australia), and Monica Valvik, who won the women’s road race in 1994, as the only Norwegians to have worn the iconic rainbow jersey.