Exhausted Vollering seemed on track for world title time trial, but Brown recovers and wins after all

Grace Brown has crowned herself the world champion in the time trial(among elite women) in Switzerland. After a great spectacle, she was the fastest on the course in and around Zurich. Demi Vollering had to settle for second place, and defending champion Chloe Dygert finished third.

We started the World Championships cycling immediately with an excellent time trial day, as the elite women and men would finish the individual time trial races on Sunday afternoon. As the saying goes, it was "ladies first," so we looked at what riders like Kopecky, Vollering, Dygert, and Brown were about to show. After all, that "group" was labeled as the favorites. Could Dygert successfully defend her title?

The riders all left the starting podium relatively late, so we first saw several of the "lesser gods" at work. And that provided an excellent spectacle, with continuous changes of the hot seat guard. Then that one was fastest again, only minutes later that one again. For example, Eugenia Bujak (Slovenia, 43.06), Emily Ehrlich (United States, 42.37), and Mie Bjorndal Ottestad (Norway, 42.02) were in the hot seat for a while during the first half of the World Championship.

Vollering overtakes Brown at first but eventually must admit her defeat of the Olympic champion.

Well, the reference times were at least a little known. But were the absolute top favorites also capable of finishing under 40 minutes? We had to wait a while, but the answer came pretty quickly. Brodie Chapman (Australia) recorded an excellent 41.42; the powerful Ellen van Dijk came in at 41.03. Was that a time we should seriously start taking into account?

After Van Dijk, Kopecky, Vollering, Brown, and Dygert still had to finish. It had already become clear that Kopecky was performing relatively less well, as she had to allow up to 50 seconds to Vollering, who in turn was five seconds slower than Olympic champion Brown. At that point, Dygert was about as fast as Van Dijk.

Did we get a battle at the finish line for the gold between Brown and Vollering? How were the odds at the end of the ordeal? At 41.03, we had Van Dijk's competitive benchmark time. Antonia Niedermaier was the first to break the time on behalf of Germany at 40.21; Kopecky had to settle for 40.55. And what about Vollering? 39.32, what a super time! It was then waiting for Brown, who seemed to have lost (read: at intermediate point two) some of her strength. Or did she manage a "comeback"? The latter turned out to be the case, as the Olympic champion finished in a time of 39.16. Nice! Vollering was second, Dygert (40.12) third. Niedermaier finished fourth but could call herself the champion of the U23 category.

Results World time trial elite women 2024

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