Top favorite Segaert completely collapses in the final phase: "Sharp pains in my spleen and my vision faded to black"

Third time's a charm – or, at least, that should have been the case for Alec Segaert. The Belgian started off as the overwhelming favorite at the U23 World Time Trial Championships, but exploded in the finale and ultimately missed out on the medals.

"Of course I'm disappointed," began the 21-year-old Flemish rider in a conversation with Eurosport. "I started off feeling good, I had planned to lose some time on the climb. I felt very strong and hoped that I could maintain that until the finish. But when I reached the lake, after just a kilometer on the flat, I felt completely empty. I couldn't hit my wattage targets. It was super tough until the finish and I felt it slipping through my fingers again." The world title eventually went to Ivan Romeo.

Had Segaert perhaps started off too aggressively? "Maybe I gave too much on the climb, but at the time it didn't feel that way. We had laid out a plan for the pace, hoping for a perfect day. On the climb, it felt that way too. If you are short a few percent and go too hard at the beginning, you will pay for that at the end." At the last intermediate checkpoint, the European U23 champion was still six seconds ahead of Romeo, but at the finish, he conceded a whopping 54 seconds – that's a decline of a minute in roughly ten kilometers.

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Challenging course no excuse: "Just lacked the power on the flat"

The hilly course around Zürich made the race difficult for the Lotto Dstny rider. "Of course, it would have been better if it had been a bit flatter. But I like a time trial with intervals. Maybe the climb was a bit too long for me. I was hoping for a few more small hills, but if I had the best time on the climb I couldn't complain. I just lacked the power on the flat."

Speaking toSporza, Segaert did indicate just how incredibly deep he had gone. "In a World Championship, you keep going all-out for every second and every position. The last kilometers I really went very deep. I think I have never gone that deep before. I am still recovering. I had sharp pains in my spleen and my vision faded to black for a moment. But maybe it's better to lose by a large margin than to fall just short again. Was it due to the form of the day? Something like that. It's those few percent that you're missing."