Time Trial, Elite Women, Under 23 Men

UCI 2006 World Road Championships

Salzburg (Austria), 19 - 24 Sept. 2006

British Cycling World Road Championships Home Page

Larry Hickmott reports and photographs

TIME TRIALS (Elite Women and Under 23 Men)

Women's Elite Time Trial

Nicole Cooke in the start house for the Elite Women's Time Trial.

Note: Just added -- Two galleries of pictures from day 1 of the road worlds. Gallery buttons are at the top of the page.

After some sensational performances on the road this year, the 2006 Women's World Road Cup Champion from Wales was one of the favourites for the Time Trial. Nicole Cooke has been on the top step of the podium as a junior for this event and has worked on improving her Time Trialing in recent years which has showed in a number of events this year.

The Welsh rider started her day early by doing a warm-up on the turbo at the GB Team hotel before continuing to prepare very carefully for one of her biggest races of the year. Once at the circuit, Nicole warmed up on the turbo in the GB pit before going down the street a little to the start house on the river that runs through Salzburg.

With her team car behind urging her on, Nicole rode a strong race to make up one place on the return leg and failing by less than 30 seconds to get into the medals. Afterwards we spoke in the GB pit before she returned to the Team Hotel. "In 2005 I did a lot of time trial training but no races so I didn't get a chance to prove myself. This year I have continued to work hard on the time trial and have had two really good time trial performances so I was expecting to be up there today with the top riders which I was."

"So that's good. I think I was capable of a podium today so I am disappointed I didn't achieve that but it's still a good result and that there is a lot of room for improvement. It's not like I rode the perfect race and couldn't have given anymore. I know I gave it everything but there are ways of improving it within that. The hills were quite deceptive and I thought the first hill was the nastiest and quite hard."

"The form is good though and shows that I am up there with the top riders and I think all those who beat me today were specialists in the Time Trial and not exactly specialists for the road race so it bodes well for Saturday".

Under 23 Men's Time Trial

In full flight in the last kilometre of the Time Trial.

In the afternoon, the Under 23 men had their chance to race for a rainbow jersey and in that mix was a first year senior from Milton Keynes, Ian Stannard. The former Team Keyne rider is part of the Great Britain Olympic Academy based in Italy/Manchester and he has a particular liking for the road.

For the Time Trial, he prepared as best he could going out and doing specific work in Ialy with manager Rod Ellingworth prior to the race today. Not long after 3pm, Ian on his SI GB team TT bike, started the biggest race of his life on the road and despite wearing number 13, he managed a very respectable time to finish 23rd. His first reaction as he warmed down on the rollers was to be unsure of how to view the ride, saying the ride back was certainly better than the ride out.

"I think out on the way out, I was trying to control it a bit much and lost a lot of time there. The climbs went okay it was just in between them where I tried to control the pace too much and went a bit easy. It's only marginal but I think it made quite a bit of difference. On the way back though I felt pretty strong and managed to drive it over the rises and that. I just put into the biggest gear (53x11) giving it some and the way back was an awful lot better."

Looking at his splits, they bear out out what Ian says, 41st to the first split (10km), 31st (23.7km) to the next split and finally 23rd in the race. "This was quite a big objective and I missed quite a few races for it so I could specifically prepare and that's been good as I have learnt a lot in the last two or three weeks."

I put it to Ian it must have felt a lot different to last year where he rode the Junior Time Trial based on Track training. "I felt I had a lot more power and strength this time round. Last year I didn't feel I had that." On his gears, he explained "I had a 39 inner ring for the climbs just so I could control the effort and then 53, 11 which I pretty much rode all the way back."

It should be noted looking at the result sheet that Ian rode the 4th fastest time on the last split which is a remarkable performance from someone so young and although his placing overall didn't please him, he admits he learnt a lot from the ride (pace management) and says it was a far different experience riding the Road Worlds for the first time to the senior Track Worlds which he has also ridden. "I learnt a lot about myself out there like about how far I can dig as well what gears I can ride where. Bits you pick up without realising it that come into the ride when you're racing".

Results
Elite Women
1. Kristin Armstrong (USA), 26.1 km 35:04.89
2. Karin Thuerig (Swi) +25.57
3. Christine Thorburn (USA) +29.36
4. Priska Doppmann (Swi) +55.09
5. Nicole Cooke (GBr) +55.68
6. Zulfiya Zabirova (Kaz) + 58.82

Under 23 Men
1. Dominique Cornu (Bel) 49.28.42 (47.904 km/h)
2. Mikhail Ignatiev (Rus) + 0.37.10
3. Jerome Coppel (Fra) + 0.44.66
4. Alexander Filippov (Rus) + 0.51.52
5. E Hagen-Boasson (Nor) + 0.1.12.69
6. Stefan Schaeffer (Ger) + 1.21.28

23. Ian Stannard (Gbr) + 2.08.57 (45.915)