The Netherlands and Denmark have captured the first rainbow jerseys of the 2018 Road World Championships thanks to Rozemarijn Ammerlaan and Mikkel Bjerg clinching the gold medals in their respective individual time trial events.
Already this year’s National Junior Womens’ Time Trial Champion in the Netherlands, on Monday Ammerlaan secured her first World Championships title in the same category ahead of Italy’s Camilla Alessio. Alessio finished just seven seconds back, with Elynor Backstedt, racing for Great Britain, netting the bronze at 18 seconds. Another British rider, Pfeiffer Georgi took fourth, 22 seconds down.
Later on Monday in the U-23 Men’s TT event, Mikkel Bjerg took his second straight title in the speciality by a massive 33 seconds ahead of Brent Van Moer of Belgium and Bjerg’s Danish compatriot, Mathias Norsgaard Jorgensen.
In the Junior Womens’ event, Ammerlaan was the eighth rider of 46 participants racing on a rainsoaked, undulating 19.8 kilometre course running from the Swarovski Crystal Worlds in Wattens and finishing in front of the Hofburg Imperial Palace in Innsbruck.
At the mid-way checkpoint at 10.2 kilometres Ammerlaan roared through in 13-30, just three tenths of a second off Backstedt’s fastest time. But then in the second, hillier half, whilst Backstedt dropped off the pace to bronze, Ammerlaan’s consistency propelled the 18-year-old Netherlands rider higher up the ranking, all the way to gold.
Silver went to Italy’s Camilla Alessio, just the second rider to start and who spent nearly an hour as provisional best rider before Ammerlaan went seven seconds faster.
“It’s a big surprise, I didn’t expect this, words fail me,” Ammerlaan said after becoming the first individual rider to take a gold medal in the 2018 Road World Championships. “It was very tough, specially the second part which was pretty hilly.”
“But I didn’t want to know any time gaps, becasue that doesn’t change anything or let me know if I’m riding any better. I just rode.”
Ammerlaan said she found the senior Netherlands racers, with their excellent time trialling record, a real inspiration, “because we are all staying in the same hotel here, so it’s a great chance to learn from them too.”
“Next year, in any case, I want to see if I can start taking part in elite-level events.”
Racing in much sunnier conditions in the afternoon on a slightly longer, and much hillier 27.8 kilometre course than the Junior Women, Denmark’s Mikkel Bjerg easily netted his second straight gold medal in the U-23 Men’s category.
By far the fastest at the intermediate split, with a 24 second gap on team-mate and eventual bronze medallist Mathias Norsgaard Jorgensen, Bjerg’s advantage had increased by the finish to 33 seconds over Belgium’s Brent Van Moer.
The rest of the top ten riders, from Jorgensen’s bronze downwards, all finished within 30 seconds of each other, indicating how superior Bjerg was to the rest of Monday’s field - just as he had been in Bergen, Norway, last year when he took gold by over a minute. Bjerg’s second win in the categry also means that Denmark have taken the U-23 Men’s TT title three times in the last four years, with Mads Wurtz Schmidt clinching gold in 2015, followed by Berg’s two titles in 2017 and 2018.
“It’s unbelievable,” Bjerg said later. “My whole season has been about preparing for this race, I flew out here ten days ago and rode the course time and again, I really got it under my skin.”
“But in any case, my feeling out there was exceptional.”
A silver medallist in the elite men’s National Time Trial this summer, the 19-year-old says that his dream goal for the moment is “to improve my road racing abilities and hopefully get some big wins.”
With Bjerg the last rider of the 71 participants in the U-23 event, for a long spell Belgium’s Brent Van Moer held the provisional best finishing time, having ridden a well-calculated course and gained a solid advantage in the hillier second half.
Edoardo Affini of Italy bettered Van Moer’s time - finally the fourth best - at the intermediate split by a respectable 12 seconds, but the reigning U-23 European and Italian National U-23 Time Trial Champion then faded in the second, rolling half of the Austrian course.
Affini finally finished fourth, six seconds down on bronze medallist Jorgensen. Meanwhile last year’s silver medallist, Brandon McNulty of the USA, had to settle this time round for seventh.
Racing at the 2018 UCI Road World Championships continues on Tuesday with two races, the Junior Men’s and Elite Women’s Individual Time Trial events, both on the same challenging 27.8 kilometre course used by the U-23 Men.
All the results.