World Championships: McNulty wins junior men time trial

Brandon McNulty (USA) claimed victory in the junior men's time trial at the UCI Road World Championships in Doha, beating Mikkel Bjerg (Denmark) into second place and fellow American Ian Garrison into third.

Bronze medallist in Richmond a year ago and winner of the prestigious Tour de l'Abitibi this summer, McNulty was the favourite for this event and the final rider down the start ramp. He quickly settled into a smooth rhythm and posted the quickest time at the first intermediate check.

McNulty extended his lead to eight seconds at the midpoint, and then took flight in the third quarter of the course, stretching his advantage to 30 seconds over Bjerg by the final check point. The American gave a visual demonstration of his dominance by catching his one and two-minute men in the closing kilometres, and he punched the air as he crossed the line in the day's fastest time, 35 seconds clear of Bjerg and 53 ahead of Garrison.

McNulty is in lofty company as only the third American to win a junior men's road world title after Greg LeMond's triumph in the 1979 road race and Taylor Phinney's time trial victory in Aguascalientes in 2007.

"It's incredible. Just looking back at the guys that have won in the past, it's a pretty elite group and it's impossible to describe what it feels like," said McNulty.

Bjerg had come close to victory but explained afterwards that he was not at all disappointed to come home with silver. "It feels like winning because Brandon was so strong. He was just better than me so I'm really happy with this," said the Dane.

McNulty's two companions on the podium had the benefit of an earlier start, with both rolling down the start ramp before 10am. Bjerg was first of the three to start and immediately signalled his intentions by going fastest at all three time checks. Garrison would slot in 18 seconds behind him with a strong second lap after making a comparatively slow start. Thus, the long wait would begin with Belgium's Ruben Apers joining them in the hot seat for much of the duration. Apers was pushed out before the end, and will be pondering what could have been after losing his bidon on the first lap.

As the heat ramped up, the times became slower and it wasn't until the final few riders that Bjerg's lead came under threat. The first of those contenders was his own teammate Julius Johansen, who immediately began posting fastest times. However, as with many in Monday's events, Johansen cracked in the latter stages and rolled in to post the provisional third fastest time. Hot on his heels was McNulty, who charged past his minute and two-minute men on the way to victory. Starting last of the 85 competitors, McNulty was subjected to the hottest and windiest conditions but that was not an issue for him, he explained afterwards.

"It was definitely toasty out but my home town is Phoenix, Arizona so I've grown up in this kind of heat so it wasn't too big of a shock," McNulty said. "Ian and I have been doing some crazy heat activation over these past few weeks. It wasn't fun but I felt like we were activated enough and we could handle it and push through it.

"When I caught the guy that went off in front of me, I knew that I was putting in a really good ride. When I caught the Swiss guy, that's when I knew it was pretty good. It was definitely motivating to see that I was catching the other guys and really good for the mentality to stay positive and keep pushing."

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