Derek Gee (Israel Cycling Academy) took out the men's time trial title at the 2022 Canadian Road Championships as the championship faced difficult weather conditions on returning to the western city of Edmonton for the first time in 12 years.
The riders faced heavy, driving rain and gusting winds that took the temperature down to 10 °C during their three laps of the largely flat 16km rectangular circuit, located in the small town of Beaumont, south of Edmonton. A total of 26 Elite and Under-23 riders opted not to start the men's race.
"It wasn't the best conditions," said Gee. "Got off the trainer and looked outside, and was thinking we were in for a pretty wild one. It's kind of nice when it's raining that hard and it's that cold, because you feel the legs a bit less; it ended up being a super steady effort.”
Gee, who was third last year, has shown strong form in Europe this season, and has already been signed to move up to the WorldTour team for next season. However, his condition was unknown.
“I was super worried about my form - I got COVID about two months ago and it was a long road back; even now when I was doing high intensity workouts, it was 50-50 on the day whether it would go well or really, really poorly,” added Gee.
He quickly answered that question, putting up the best splits for each half lap and winning by 51 seconds over former national road champion Matteo Dal-Cin (Toronto Hustle). Pier-Andre Cote (Human Powered Health) took the bronze medal.
“The power I did today ... I was failing [to do] even ten minutes of that two weeks ago,” said Gee. “It's really nice to see that it's come back and came together today. I couldn't have asked for a better day for it to come together."
Last year’s winner Hugo Houle (Israel-Premier Tech), is due to start the Tour in a week so didn’t defend the title.
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