On the back of two consecutive silver medals in Wollongong and Glasgow, Australia’s Grace Brown powered to the time trial world title on the shore of Lake Zurich, Switzerland, beating Demi Vollering (Netherlands) and reigning champion Chloe Dygert (USA) on a golden bike.
The 32-year-old is the first woman ever to win the Olympic and world title in the same year – a year that in June Brown announced would be her final season in the pro peloton. Naturally, she’s been asked if maybe she’s rethinking her retirement after such a successful summer, but she’s more than satisfied to go out on top.
“It honestly feels like I’m just in a bit of a dream this last couple of months,” Brown said at the finish. “These big goals might seem ambitious, but I’ve just been happy to get out on the road and do it, and to realise those dreams is really cool.”
How it happened
- The Swiss TT course, with its early climb and fast descent before a straight shot up the lakeside to the line, narrowed down the favourites somewhat, although the final stretch would offer a chance for the purists to claw back time if needed.
- Despite it being a course that didn’t perfectly suit her, three-time champion Ellen van Dijk was one to watch, and sure enough, the Dutch powerhouse delivered a benchmark time over the 29.9-kilometre course.
- The big favourites were still to come, though, and the first time check at the top of the climb provided the first gauge of how the race might shake out.
- The first sign that Lotte Kopecky (Belgium) might struggle to threaten the podium came after the climb as the newly crowned European TT champion logged the fourth-best time behind then-fastest Antonia Niedermaier (Germany). By the time everyone had come through, Kopecky’s first 10.4 km were 57 seconds slower than the fastest time.
- With Anna Henderson (Great Britain) only a whisker slower than Kopecky, Vollering was the next to smash the benchmark after a characteristically strong climb, faster than the young German by 23 seconds.
- However, it was Brown, the penultimate rider to get underway, who got off to the best start by cutting 6 seconds out of Vollering’s time, as Dygert had work to do after losing 36 seconds to the Olympic champion in less than 11km.
- The momentum swung back in Vollering’s favour on the descent, though, and in the middle 10 km, the Dutch rider was back in the green with 8 seconds in hand.
- After 20.5 km, it was becoming clear that short of disaster, the gold-medal duel was between Vollering and Brown, while Dygert was battling Niedermaier for the final medal – in the elite race; the 21-year-old German had already sealed the under-23 title.
- With the climb and daring descent behind them, Brown was now on terrain on which she has the edge, at the very least, over Vollering.
- As for Vollering, having thrown everything at the first half, she caught up to Juliette Labous (France) on the flat road that followed the lake’s edge, but in the remaining 8 km, the pair stayed fairly close together – not enough to incur infractions, but enough to cast doubt on Vollering’s pacing.
- The Dutch rider successfully dislodged Niedermaier at the finish with 48 seconds in hand, securing a medal, at least.
- Next to finish, though, was Brown, and the Australian’s timer stayed green all the way to the line, beating Vollering by 16 seconds, sealing a historic Olympic-Worlds double.
- Defending champion Dygert entered the final kilometre with an impossible deficit, and now it was just a matter of finishing on the podium, which she succeeded in doing by a margin of less than 10 seconds.
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Quotes of the day
It was a very different approach to the Olympics, I went over my plan like a thousand times, I had every detail dialled. I was a bit more relaxed coming into this, I didn’t have the same amount of time to prepare, but I think just having the confidence and knowing that I’ve executed many time trials well that I could still be confident in my preparation and know that I could do my best over this course as well.”
Brown was notably cool at the finish, clearly perfectly content with her final World Championship time trial, which she’d paced to perfection.
I was pleased that I was ahead at the top of the climb because I kind of expected that I might be a bit back there against Vollering because she’s such a strong climber. Then I guess she attacked the middle section of the race a bit more than I did, maybe, and it took me a couple of kilometres on the flat to get into a rhythm after all the climbing, but I felt like I gained strength towards the end, so that’s how I was able to gain back the time that I lost.”
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