Whitten comes back from head injury to win Canadian time trial title

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Neither of Canada's time trial champions were able to retain their titles on Tuesday, at the Canadian Road National Championships as Tara Whitten (The Cyclery-Opus) took the second women's title of her career.

The out-and-back course took the riders through the Gatineau national park outside of Ottawa, opening with a long rolling climb to the turnaround point and then a fast descent back to the finish. The women rode 26 kilometres and the men 36 kilometres.

Whitten, who was the top Canadian finisher on a modified version of the course a few weeks ago at the Gatineau Chrono, is in only her third race
this season after suffering a severe neck injury early in the season that put her in a neck brace. The 2012 Olympic bronze medalist on the track in the Team Pursuit, was clearly the fastest at every check point, beating defending champion Karol-Ann Canuel (Boels-Dolmans) by 48.47 seconds. Joelle Numainville (Cervelo Bigla) took third, a further 58 seconds back.

"I was really excited about this course, actually," said Whitten. "Riding in the Park was so nice, and I've been working on my climbing, so I thought I could do something here. I'm really happy with how my ride went. This is only my third race this season, so I was a little uncertain about how it would go."

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