Welcome to the TTT World Championship here in Nagasaki. It’s the second race of this Worlds, after yesterday Aleksandr Pluchkin won the B Road Race. The course is a really tough one, which should favour countries that their timetrialists aren’t scared of climbs. The bookies give the favourite status to the defending champions Netherlands, to Australia and Germany, while Spain, France and USA are one step behind. But the hills can change the expected outcome of this race and bring us a surprise winner
Ukraine opens up the TTT! In the intermediate point they set a time of 33’34
Russia goes and beats Ukraine’s time by 28 seconds, but they have already lost one rider after 20 kms, maybe a bit early to contend for the medals today
Kazakhstan sets the second best time, only 2 seconds better than Ukraine, and as Russia, they have lost 1 rider already
Fantastic time for Spain! First team under 33 minutes in the intermediate point and they go through with all their riders. They have been 7 seconds faster than Russia
Switzerland is the big surprise right now, as they have done a better time than Russia! The bad thing is that they already lost DIllier, their best timetrialist for the flat part
If Switzerland was a big surprise, Austria is an even bigger one! They managed to destroy Spain time by 14 seconds and put a time of 32’43
Is everyone going to beat the previous team time or what? Portugal narrowly improves Austrians time by just 1 second!
Colombia’s amazing time can be explained by the great amount of climbers in their squad and that the first is the one with the most climbs, but they are still putting almost 30 seconds on one of the favourites like Spain!
New Zealand is completely off the pace, and sets the worse time so far with more than 10 seconds of difference
France is very disappointing so far, being 49 seconds slower than Colombia after only 20 kms
This is unbelievable! The reigning champion are only tenth out of eleven so far, 1’09 behind Colombia
Complete disaster for Germany! They are almost 2 minutes slower than the fastest time so far! It’s obvious that so far the squad with more climbers than timetrialist are succeeding. It can be interesting to see if those teams can hold on their advantage in the flatter part that it comes now
It looked like no one could do it worse than Germany, but Australia said: “hold my beer”, and did a time 15 seconds worse. And the next team just crossed the intermediate point a few seconds after Australian team...
4th best time for the USA team, which was not far to already overtake Australian team in Mount Yahaduzaka. They are 18 seconds slower than Colombia at this point
Not the best time for Italy, 9th best 50 seconds behind Colombia’s time
Great time for Slovenia, who is only 18 seconds worse than Colombia, and has put himself in 4th place
Horrible time by Norway, more than 2 minutes behind Colombi
Ireland sets the 13th best time at the intermediate point, 1’06 behind Colombia
At least Denmark was faster than Norway to avoid being provisionally last, even behind Australia and Germany, over 2 minutes slower than Colombia’s time
China is only 17th so far, 1’54 behind Colombia. Not that it’s a surprise their bad time though
And the Czechs goes crazy as their squad has set the second best time in the intermediate point! Their loss to Colombia is 11 seconds, but they are winning time on Portugal, which is the important thing now
Great Britain sets a time exactly 1 minute slower than Colombia in the intermediate point
Good time for Belgium, who are only 26 seconds slower than Colombia, sitting in seventh place
The last team to start was Sweden. They set a pretty average, in the middle of all teams so far, 12th best
Ukraine is obviously the first team to finish their race, and they do a time of 1’07’43
Russia beats as expected Ukraine’s time, but not by much. Only 20 seconds of margin
Kazakhstan can’t improve Ukraine’s time, and has to settle for third place provisional, 24 seconds behind Russia
Spain goes fastest by some quite margin! They have been 44 seconds faster than Russia at the end
Switzerland falls short of beating Spain’s time by 18 seconds, but they are still second best provisionally
Austria can’t replicate his great first part of the chrono, and only goes third fastest, 22 seconds behind Spanish team time
And we have a new fastest time with Portugal! 1’06’07, which is 29 seconds better than Spain!
And Colombia can’t beat Portugal, having to settle for second place, 13 seconds worse than Portugal. Is Portugal going to get away with the Gold Medal today?
New Zealand manages to beat both Ukraine and Kazakhstan to finish 7th so far, 1’19 behind Portugal
Not a good day for France, who can only set the sixth best time in the finish, 53 seconds behind Portugal
And the reigning champions couldn’t recover their disadvantage in the second part of the chrono and finish only ninth 1’22 behind Portugal
Wow... worse time so far for Germany, the only team that is more than 2 minutes slower than Portugal
Australia is even worse than Germany... 2’29 behind Portugal. That must have hurted them
USA has ended up crossing the line at the same time as Australia... and they get second place only 4 seconds behind Portugal! They are most likely getting a medal now, but being so close to the win...
8th place for Italy, after being 1’02 slower than Portugal
Only fifth for Slovenia, who lost a lot of time in the final part, putting at the end the same time as Switzerland, 47 seconds behind Portugal
As they did in the intermediate point, worse time for Norway today. Over 3 minutes is their loss to Portugal
13th place so far for Ireland, 1’30 slower than Portugal
Second worse time for Denmark, only a few seconds behind Australia, though they are over 2’30 behind Portugal
That was horrible from China. They almost did it worse than Norway. 2’49 is their time loss
And the time of the Czech Republic team is not enough to compete for medals, and they have to settle for fifth, 35 seconds behind Portugal. Unless something amazing happens now, the medals will go to Portugal, USA and Colombia
Great Britain does the 16th best time, 1’37 slower than Portugal’s time
Belgium sneaks into the Top8 of the race with a good final part, finishing 49 seconds worse than Portugal
And Sweden is the last team, can they recover the 58-second gap they had to Portugal to steal their Gold medal?
Of course they don’t and can only put the 16th fastest time of today...
... so that means that Portugal wins the 2017 TTT World Championship!!
