A month after announcing she would retire at the end of the season, Grace Brown rode to gold in the Olympic time trial in Paris. The Australian finished +01:31 faster than Anna Henderson (Great Britain) who took silver and +01:32 faster than Chloe Dygert (USA) who claimed bronze. Brown's ride got Australia off to a great start in Paris as its first gold medal of the Games.
Two days of rain meant the roads were especially treacherous. Numerous riders crashed, including two of the top favourites, road world champion Lotte Kopecky and Dygert.
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Top 10
- Grace Brown (Australia) 39:38
- Anna Henderson (Great Britain) @ 1:31
- Chloe Dygert (USA) @ 1:32
- Juliette Labous (France) @ 1:41
- Demi Vollering (Netherlands) @ 1:51
- Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) @ 1:56
- Kim Cadzow (New Zealand) @ 2:08
- Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) @ 2:11
- Audrey Cordon-Ragot (France) @ 2:13
- Christina Schweinberger (Austria) @ 2:14
Brief analysis
- Just days before the race Belgian ITT champion Kopecky revealed that her post-Giro d'Italia recovery didn't go to plan when she came out of getting second in the general classification with COVID-19. The road world champion said it wasn't ideal, but that it hadn't affected her too much and she expected her form on the track later in the Games would be where she wants it to be.
- The rain started the day before the race and continued well into the event so the women were dealing with extremely wet roads. Since the race was in the city centre of Paris, the roads were extra slippery
- After setting the fastest first intermediate time, Taylor Knibb crashed in a roundabout (Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig would crash in the same place) only to then need a wheel change shortly after. While running to get her a new bike her mechanic slipped on the wet roads and went down as well.
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- Kopecky was the next rider to go down, after setting another first-check fastest intermediate time. A little while later, on a different corner that went from tarmac to cobbles, Dygert went down hard enough to lose her glasses. The world ITT champ jumped up quickly, without needing a bike change.
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- One impressive performance early on came from New Zealand's Kim Cadzow who set the fastest time when she finished, before Brown, Van Dijk and Dygert finished. Cadzow is pretty new to the sport but caught the attention of WorldTour teams after winning the New Zealand ITT national championships in January this year. Cadzow held the hot seat until Kopecky crossed the line and took her spot.
- Ellen van Dijk, who was an early favourite for a medal, battled against all odds to be on the start line on Saturday. Already 10 months postpartum after giving birth to her son, Van Dijk's journey to Paris hit a roadblock when she broke her ankle in June. She continued to train and was cleared to race by the Dutch Cycling Federation shortly before the race. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be her day. In the end, Van Dijk finished 11th, +02:43 behind Brown. She said afterward that the combinations of her condition and her lingering injury made her afraid to crash.
- Momentarily, Frenchwoman Juliette Labous got to sit in the hot seat of her home Games. Henderson would unseat her, but it was a massive ride from Labous who put in a faster time than Demi Vollering.
- Another fantastic ride was from Henderson. Two broken collarbones this year have meant very little racing for the British woman, but she came into the race after winning the Nationals ITT and proving her fitness.
- After the finish, Elisa Longo Borghini, who won the Giro weeks before the Olympics, said that when she heard Kopecky had crashed she eased up on the corners.
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