Third day of the Worlds, and we start with the U23 racing. Yesterday we saw Portugal take the Gold medal in the TTT in a rather hilly course, but the ITT course isn’t as hilly as the TTT, so the favourite for the win today should be Mads Wurtz. He’s miles ahead of any other rider in what pure timetrial abilities we talk about, but Silvio Herklotz and Merhawi Kudus aren’t terrible timetrialist and are great climbers who might use Idanasake’s climb to recover some time.
The first rider to put a competitive time is Kilian Frankiny, whose time in the finish of Nagasaki is 1h17’44. It doesn’t look like a time that will be good enough for a Top10 though
Enric Mas can’t be the Swiss time, though he is now seconds only 4 second behind Frankiny
Amazing time by Hugh Carthy, who has been setting the best time in all the intermediate points during all course. He beats Frankiny by 42 seconds!
M.A.Lopez finished strong, but it wasn’t enough to surpass Carthy in the top of standings. The Colombian was 6 seconds slower than the British rider
And there’s a new change of leader, as Ranaweera beats Carthy by the narrowest of margins, 3 tenths!
Not the best day for last year U23 RR Champion Kasperkiewicz, as he can only be sixth, 50 seconds behind Carthy
Katrasnik goes even faster than Ranaweera and sets a 1h17’00 time, which is 2 seconds better than the Sri Lankan
Wow! After probably the best day ever for Antonijevic in a bike race, the Serbian has destroyed the clock and is the first rider to go under 77 minutes. He has set the fastest time by 19 seconds!
And Silvio Herklotz takes another 20 seconds from Antonijevic’s time to set the current fastest time! The German is going all-in for both U23 titles this year, and his quest to be the first one to do it since Taylor Phinney in 2011 has started well
6th best time for Soren Kragh Andersen, who couldn’t go under 77 minutes, being 41 seconds slower than Herklotz
Goldstein crosses the line and the rider of Israel sets the eighth best time, the last one within a minute of Herklotz
Cortina sneaks into the provisional Top10, just over a minute slower than Herklotz
Kennett sets the same times as Lopez, which leaves him currently in 8th place
Great time for Gregory Daniel, who has done a time good enough to be third at this point, though there are still a few riders to come left
David Per looked like Herklotz biggest threat as he was 3 seconds faster in the first intermediate point and after the second he was only 5 seconds behind. But if there’s someone meant to take the Gold Medal away from Herklotz, it’s not going to be the young Slovenian, as he fell short by just 2 seconds!!
8th place for Borisavljevic, who has done a time 42 seconds slower than Herklotz’s
Kudus can be only fifth, half a minute worse than Herklotz, and just 10 seconds away from the medals
After a terrible first part of the race, Nils Politt has recovered well enough to set the fourth best time in Nagasaki, 29 seconds behind Herklotz
And Wurtz’s time is 1h16’43, which is not enough to get a medal today, as he has to settle for the fourth place.
And the final rider to finish this course is Ryan Mullen. Herklotz and Per have already secured a medal, and Antonijevic is waiting for the Irish to not improve his time. It doesn’t look like Mullen will contest for the win, as he was 12 seconds behind in the second intermediate point, but can he steal the final medal of the day?
Yes he does! He finish with a time only 9 seconds slower than Herklotz...
So the new U23 ITT World Champion is Silvio Herklotz!!!
