World Time Trial Championships

Thank you Italy, for your open and loving spirit, one that has rescued so many refugees over the years, that same national spirit rising to save the World Cycling Championships, brutally cast adrift by Switzerland, rendered homeless at the very last minute.

I’ll only speak briefly about the Women’s Time Trial Championships as Chloe Dygert, the American five-time Gold Medalist at the Worlds, and Junior World Road and TT Champion, crashed out while crushing the race. She was a whopping 30” ahead of the Swiss Marlen Reusser at the 15-kilometer intermediate checkpoint - that’s two-seconds a kilometer faster – thus in a position to take precautions, to race safely to the finish and her second consecutive Rainbow Jersey. Instead, she took a fast, downhill right turn way too hot, and in an ugly crash that was agonizing to watch as she desperately tried to right the bicycle, Dygert flipped over a guardrail down into a ravine, disappearing from sight.

I’ve got questions about that crash. If it is true, which I can’t seem to find in the rules, that race radios (radio comms between the racers and their director) are banned from the Worlds, then why, in the case of the Time Trial, are car-mounted loud speakers not used to replace the radios? The concept of banning radios for road races has its supporters, more athlete less coach is the argument, but Time Trials have always used the afore-mentioned speakers to coach racers. I remember waiting for a tape drop at the Tour in 1994 and seeing the ONCE car come by screaming “Venga, venga, venga!!” over the speaker. It provided great entertainment for the public.

I did see one follow car with a speaker in the TV coverage of the Women’s race, but couldn’t find one on the USA car. The point of having the speaker/radio is to keep the athlete aware of time gaps, but to also coach them through treacherous points of the racecourse. There was one striking moment in the – and I bring it up quite often as it was so illuminating – Movistar documentary on Netflix, when Team Director Chente Garcia was coaching Mikel Landa through a Tour TT. Chente dropped his head for a moment, then raised it to suddenly realize that Landa, head down, was heading straight into a wall at full speed. He grabbed his radio and screamed a warning to Landa who corrected last-minute and made it out of the turn in one piece. What struck me was that the racers seem to so completely rely on the radio information, racing with their heads down until alerted to raise their eyes for a turn. Like it or not, that’s how the racers have been trained and what they are accustomed to. The job of the USA team director was to let Dygert know that she had a margin and that above all, she was not to take any risks in the turns. If there was no way to do that due to the radio ban, then so be it. But that loudspeaker I saw on the one team car bothers me. Why was it there if not allowed to be used? And if it was allowed, why didn’t we have one on our car? Chloe Dygert’s crash was an expensive one for women’s cycling. She has the personality and presence that screams star – she’s capable of bringing the women’s side of the sport way up. Let’s hope no permanent damage has been done and that we’ll see Chloe Dygert back and on top of things in short order.

Italy’s generosity was rewarded with the confirmation of a new national star. Filippo Ganna, the 6’4” 24-year old from the beautiful Lago Maggiore region, was formed as a track racer and time trial specialist. He’s already been World Pursuit Champion (track race) four times, in addition to seven major time trial wins in his short pro career. It’s in the pursuit race, a four-kilometer track race – the mile-run of cycling – that one can really see the power of today’s young riders.

Ganna, who is approaching the point of beating four-minutes for an individual pursuit, uses a 60 x 14 gear on his track bike, pedaling at 115 rpm. That’s the same as a 52 x 12…Back in the day, the pursuit gears were 50 x 15, sometimes 51 x 15. The difference is massive, caused in part by all of the aerodynamic positions and equipment, but also by all of the science and intelligence that goes into modern training. So just imagine this young Italian, stomping on the pedals at the start, then blasting that massive 60 x 14 around the track for four-minutes at over 60kph. That’s the raw power of today’s young racers. Ganna took 2.8 seconds a kilometer out of Geraint Thomas to win the final TT stage of Tirenno-Adriatico, a full second a kilometer out of Ashton Lambie to win the World Pursuit Championships this year, and just under one-second a kilometer to beat Wout van Aert and become World Champion. He has a beautifully powerful style as befits a track-trained star, and is now Italy’s hat to throw into that special ring comprised of exciting, young uber-talents. The thing to know about Ganna is that between all of that track and time trial racing, he managed to sneak in a U-23 Paris-Roubaix victory.

Filippo Ganna will take the start of the Giro d’Italia next Saturday, on a largely downhill course that will favor his size and speed while wearing the Rainbow Jersey of World Time Trial Champion. He should, if things go to plan, exchange it for the Maglia Rosa, the pink jersey that denotes the leader of the Giro, at the end of his first day of his first Grand Tour. Ganna will become a star of the Classics and be spoken of in the same breath as Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. If the two of them represent modern versions of Roger De Vlaeminck and Jan Raas respectively, I propose Filippo Ganna as the new Francesco Moser. The Classics will be grand.