The best riders in the men's under-23 World Championship time trial included athletes from some of the sport's biggest teams. Then there is New Zealand’s Logan Currie.
Norwegian winner Søren Wærenskjold, had Sunday's elite victor and compatriot Tobias Foss to advise him on the best strategy, as well as a swathe of preparatory resources. Alec Segaert of Belgium was shadowing Tour de France stage winner Yves Lampaert in his time trial, while bronze medallist Leo Hayter (Great Britain) had his brother Ethan, who placed fourth despite a mechanical, to learn from.
Currie, who finished fourth, less than 10 seconds behind Hayter, didn't have that advantage.
“I’m pretty happy with fourth in that category, with some of those boys,” said the 21-year-old straight after he finished the time trial. “There’s some really big names in there so I’m pretty stoked at where I”ve got.
“I thought I was on a bad one to be honest, but obviously I wasn’t going too bad. You can't really look at your numbers on that sort of course. It’s just full gas out of every corner and just keep the power on as much as possible.”
The rider from New Zealand is part of a skeleton team and none of the riders from his nation participated in the men’s elite time trials. In fact, the lone representative for New Zealand in the elite men is Bolton Equities teammate James Fouche and while Currie has company in the U23 road race, it will still be a small team, with Jack Drage his only teammate.
It’s not that New Zealand don’t have worthy options, and they are bound to be strong contenders in the elite/U23 women’s road race with Niamh Fisher-Black spearheading a strong team of four.
However, the nation is short on funding, having asked riders to pay their own travel costs and devoting their limited budget to delivering “a world-class group of support staff which is what our riders have asked for.”
Yet Currie refused to have any regrets.
“You can only do what you can do in that sort of time trial. The team helped me a lot to get over here. Credit to them. I just wish I could have gone top three for them.”
Currie still has one year left in the U23 category, and this year’s winner Wærenskjold was the fourth-placed rider in 2021. Plus, the UCI Road World Championships, which being located in Australia is just about as close to a home event as New Zealand gets, isn’t over yet, with Currie and Drage racing the 170km U23 men’s road race on Friday.
“I just think we have to go full gas from the start. Stay up front and just try and limit the size of the field towards the end. I think that’s the best way forward,” he said.
