Tom Dumoulin wins Cycling Road World Championships time trial – as it happened – The Guardian

Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands crushed his rivals to claim his first individual time trial title at the road cycling world championships on Wednesday, to add to the Giro d’Italia he won in May.

Despite the rain that hurt the chances of the late starters, Dumoulin clocked a time of 44min 41sec on the 31-kilometre course in Bergen. He beat second-placed Primoz Roglic of Slovenia by 57 seconds, while Briton Chris Froome finished third, 1min 21sec slower. Dumoulin actually came close to overtaking Tour de France champion Froome despite starting 90 seconds behind him.

“I can’t believe it, wow, it’s really amazing,” said Dumoulin. “I had such a good day I felt really really good. Then it started raining and I had to take the corners really slow especially in the climb.”
Dumoulin, whose previous best result was third in 2014, also won the team time trial with Sunweb last Sunday.

Defending champion Tony Martin lost too much ground in two passages of a brutal 3.4-kilometre climb at an average gradient of 9.1 percent to add to his four titles. (Reuters)