Trek-Segafredo win Postnord Vargarda WestSweden TTT

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Trek-Segafredo has won the Postnord Vårgårda WestSweden TTT on Saturday. Having set the best time every intermediate check, the team including Audrey Cordon-Ragot, Elisa Longo Borghini, Ellen van Dijk, Tayler Wiles, Ruth Winder, and Trixi Worrack finished the TTT in 43:53 minutes, beating Canyon-SRAM by 25 seconds and Team Sunweb by 46 seconds.

"It feels good to get a win as a team," said Ruth Winder in a TV interview after the race. "Every bike race is a team game, and to stand on the podium together is really, really cool. It was our first time together, but we have such an experienced group of girls. Everybody on the team really knows how to do a team time trial, and we had a lot of trust and confidence in each other and came together as one cohesive unit. We will celebrate a little, but we are already excited for the road race on Sunday, too."

The TTT was a bit shorter than last year as the Hägrungabakken hill had been cut from the route. Teams were sent out on a 35.6-kilometre course, most of which was an out-and-back course from Vårgårda to Herrljunga where riders turned around with a timing point after 15.7km. Another timing point came on the way back after 27.1km, followed by a technical final through the streets of Vårgårda. The roads were still somewhat wet after a morning rain, and after a tailwind on the first section out to Herrljunga, teams had to contend with a head-crosswind on the way home.

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The first team to start was BTC City Ljubljana with Swedish rider Hanna Nilsson. Having set the first times at each timing point, the Slovenian team's finishing time of 47:17 minutes was good enough for 12th place out of 14 teams. Originally, 15 teams were scheduled to start, but WNT-Rotor had to withdraw after a crash during their TTT recon on Friday damaged the team's time trial bikes.

With 19:58 minutes, Valcar Cylance was the first team to clock under 20 minutes at the Herrljunga turning point, but this time was in turn beaten by Team Virtu Cycling and Team Sunweb. Canyon-SRAM set a very good time with 19:10 minutes; only Trek-Segafredo managed to improve on this split time with 19:02 minutes.

At the second timing point, Sunweb stopped the clock after 34:05 minutes, setting a preliminary best time. Canyon-SRAM beat this by 22 seconds, then Trek-Segafredo shaved another 17 seconds off the time.

On the final kilometres, the Trek-Segafredo team even passed CCC-Liv who had started three minutes earlier. Boels Dolmans had won the TTT for three consecutive years 2016-2018, but missed the podium this year, finishing fourth.

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