World Championships: Remco Evenepoel beats Filippo Ganna to win time trial title

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Remco Evenepoel has claimed Belgium’s first-ever gold in the elite men's time trial at the 2023 Road World Championships, ahead of Italy’s Filippo Ganna, silver, and Josh Tarling, the 19-year-old Briton who delivered a remarkable ride to finish in bronze at his first-ever elite men’s world championships.

Evenepoel, who was the 2022 World Road Race Champion, finished 12 seconds ahead of Ganna on the 47.8-kilometre course that started and finished in Stirling, with Tarling finishing 48 seconds back.

Slightly slower at the first checkpoint behind Ganna, Evenepoel then moved ahead of the Italian in the hillier second segment to go two better than his bronze medal in 2022 and in 2021.

The youngest-ever elite men's time trial world champion, at 23, Evenepoel will now head to the Vuelta a España to defend his 2022 victory.

Asked if he knew he was entering history, Evenepoel said, “Yeah, it looks like it because I’m the first Belgian to win a TT title. It’s amazing,” Evenepoel said, 

“It was the biggest goal of my season to win today, and to win it on a tough course, which is maybe not perfect for a guy of my weight… but I just had a super good day, I could hold it, and I’m just super-happy.

“To be honest, I could ride harder and faster than we planned, I could always ride 10 or 15 Watts above my pacing plan. So if you know after 30 minutes that you’re still not on the limit and don’t feel the legs, you know you’re on one of those days. I knew from the second intermediate I was going faster than people and with a bit of my terrain coming with the ups and downs. But this final climb was really brutal, and it really gave me an ‘extra knife’ in the legs in this super-hard TT, but I’m just super-proud and super-happy.”

Ganna was phlegmatic as ever about his silver medal, pointing out that he had taken medals in three separate Worlds events, two on the track and one on the roads. "I don't know which [other] riders can say the same," he added. 

And in what was his first-ever senior Worlds TT, British Champion Tarling later revealed that he had been riding without power data after his Garmin data suffered from interference from the team car, arguably making his already outstanding performance even more impressive. 

"It's a bit crazy," Tarling said about getting onto the senior podium just a year after taking the junior men's time trial world title. "I don't really know; it's just super cool to do it in the UK, you know? Australia was amazing, but this feels like the next level."

How it unfolded

In what was a deep field of contenders and with 78 riders and 49 different nationalities taking part, the first to go down the start ramp in cloudy but mostly dry weather was Wais Ahmad Bedraddhi of the Refugee Cycling Team. However, Ryan Mullen (Ireland) quickly established the top early time in the ultra-flat first section, clocking a time of 14:59 at checkpoint 1 (12.7km).

Bedhraddi set a time of 1:07:26 at the finish, but Mullen then slashed through that by over nine minutes faster, stopping the clock at 58:21 in what proved to be the first big reference point for the whole course.

Despite the strongly gusting headwind for the first part of the course, rider after rider subsequently smashed Mullen’s best time at checkpoint 1, with Kasper Asgreen (Denmark) moving ahead at 14:22. Not even former double time trial world champion Rohan Dennis, seven seconds slower but still in the game at that point, could beat that.

However, British Champion Josh Tarling showed riding on home soil was giving him wings as he crossed through 18 seconds faster than Asgreen, while Van Aert and Stefan Küng (Switzerland), a silver medallist in Australia and bronze in 2020, proved to be way off the pace. Only Filippo Ganna (Italy) could claim a quicker speed, setting the definitive best time, six seconds faster at 13:57, while Evenepoel was just four seconds behind Ganna.

On a course that was a hefty 14 kilometres longer in 2022 in Wollongong, Australia and which established some big differences early on, the flat middle section with interminable straightaways proved crucial. 

Tarling confirmed he was on a stunning ride, smashing Dennis’ previous best by 58 seconds at checkpoint 2 (34.7km). Ganna, though, looked very ominous in his quest for a third title, overtaking the previous rider down the ramp, Australian Champion Jay Vine, then going through the second check 13.2 seconds quicker than his trade teammate Tarling. 

However, Evenepoel subsequently shot through the same point with the best time of all, 12 seconds fastest and showing that Ganna and Tarling still had a real fight on their hands for gold.

Just 25 seconds separated the top three with a third of the course left, with former junior world champion Brandon McNulty (USA) a distant fourth at over a minute, meaning the fight for the medals was all but decided. 

The hilliest part of the race theoretically meant Ganna could be at a disadvantage against Evenepoel’s lighter build, but in such a long TT, it was still all far from certain.

At the finish Canadian Derek Gee had sliced through Mullen’s best time for the entire course by 4.4 seconds, with Lawson Craddock (USA) clocking an excellent 57:55 but only spending a few minutes in the hot seat before Nelson Oliveira (Portugal) then reduced it to 57:11. 

While a mechanical cost Dennis badly in his final time trial at the Worlds, at the foot of the final climb, Tarling came hammering up past Stirling Castle to rip through Oliveira’s tally by a massive 1:04. The key question by then was if Ganna had gone too deep early on or if Evenepoel could handle such a long distance to overhaul the Briton's excellent time. The victory remained in the air as Ganna fired past Tadej Pogačar in the final third of the course, 27 seconds faster than Tarling at checkpoint 3 in the outer suburbs of Stirling. Evenepoel, though, was still 10 seconds ahead of the Italian.

Pounding away on the 12% slopes at the top of the climb to Stirling Castle, Ganna crossed the line 35 seconds ahead of Tarling. But if two Ineos riders were ultimately to finish on the podium, Evenepoel’s final effort was even more impressive, crossing the line 12 seconds faster than the Italian after the punishing cobbled ascent to the finish.

Although both Küng and last year's winner Tobias Foss were yet to finish, Remco's result was more than enough to put the Belgian into the top spot and shortly after that, with all the riders home, he was confirmed as the definitive winner. 

Whilst a massive moment for his country as Belgian's first senior time trial world champion, on a personal level, Evenepoel's victory means that after a silver and two bronzes, he has now added the senior time trial world title to his junior gold taken five years ago. 

He will now head to Spain with his morale more than boosted - and perhaps, after Giro pink, now targetting the leader's red jersey in the opening team time trial as well.

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