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

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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