I had a great time at the Junior Women's individual time trial this morning. Because women's cycling unfortunately doesn't have the same appeal as men's, I was able to watch the race from a couple of different spots and even see some of the pre-race behind the scenes logistical stuff I find so fascinating.
First off, you need a lot of motorcycles for an ITT so that each rider has her own motorcyclist to make sure the road is clear and to have someone to follow.
And each rider needs her own support car to follow in case she needs to change bikes mid-course for any number of reasons. The coach is usually the driver and some of them use the loudspeaker to blast encouragement, updates, or instructions to the rider.
The scene behind the start house where each bike must be measured to ensure it is within the requirements. There was much back and forth between the UCI official and the coaches of the Jordanian rider regarding the angle of her seat.
The first of the 48 scheduled riders warmed up on trainers and rollers behind the start house.
The first rider to start wasn't on the official start list for some reason, but the Jordanian was cleared to ride.
Alexandria Nicholls sat in the start house, watching the end of the 90 second countdown for her ride to begin. She completed the 16.19 kilometer course in 22:44, averaging 42.730 kph. This ride kept her in the hot seat until the very last rider finished and earned her the silver medal.
The media sprang to life when Francesca Pattaro, the first Italian rider, entered the start house.
Some riders opted to wear full visors, like Germany's Anna Knauer, while others didn't even bother with sunglasses.
Eighteen year old Canadian Kinley Gibson, the Junior Women's national ITT champion, eventually finished in 9th.
We Canadians often like to identify ourselves with maple leafs (not leaves, but leafs–I am from Toronto, after all). I later met this photographer and one of his American friends who remembered me from the Tour de France and the Quebec races last weekend.
When I initially scouted out the course, I ended up hitting a couple of dead ends due to the way the course looped and the peculiar set up of the fences. Over the course of the morning, I saw dozens of spectators, officials, police, and even riders also getting stuck. Two of Luxembourg's male time trialists tried to figure out how to reach the road for their training ride.
In the end, they had to do a U turn and look for another bikeable road.
Alexandra Manly crossed the finish line in 22:50, averaging 42.543 kph, and took home the bronze medal.
Florence has a lot of remarkable architecture, but relatively little of it is getting showcased. The various courses travel through the city for just a few short, technical blocks and the majority of the races are done on plain roads with unspectacular backdrops.
I was able to catch the race about 5 or 6 kilometers in because the first part of the course was a loop. American Kelly Catlin placed 7th.
The final rider to start was Severine Eraud, the French and European Junior Women's ITT champion. She was the rider to beat today, but no one could do it. Her time of 22:42, an average of 42.793 kph, meant she became the Junior Women's world champion at eighteen years old.
Results
1st: Severine Eraud, France
2nd: Alexandria Nicholls, Australia
3rd: Alexandra Manly, Australia
The course remained closed to traffic in the hours between the Junior Women's and the Men's Under 23 ITTs so I stuck around and saw riders from Kazakhstan, Switzerland, Romania, Poland, France, and several other counties out for their training rides. I try to put my camera away between the races, but when I spotted Tony Martin, current ITT champion and, as of yesterday, double TTT champion, I pulled my camera out of my musette at lightning speed and got a shot of him in front of the Duomo as I cheered for him. My unprovoked outburst confused a lot of clueless tourists.
The U23 men had their ITT in the afternoon. I was curious how close I'd be able to get to the finish line, so I headed to the Mandela Forum to investigate. Turned out I was about 140 meters from the finish line and there was a big screen broadcasting the race. Pretty good!
Some of the riders seemed to scream in agony as they neared the end of the 43.49 kilometer course.
Lawson Craddock gave it all he had, as the large gob of spit on his chin will attest, and ended up 5th. The 21 year old first popped up on my radar with an 8th place overall in the Tour of California this spring and has had a solid enough season to earn a contract with Argos for next year. After the race, I saw him at the buses. He looked disappointed to have missed the podium and was visibly uncomfortable from the huge gash on his shin from crashing at a roundabout while on course, but he also looked like he was ready to start focusing on the U23 road race later in the week. When I told him I though he'd had one hell of a ride, he brightened and said, “Well, thank you!”
Bruno Maltar may have finished in 35th place, but his helmet guaranteed he looked good doing it.
Canadian Alexander Cataford ended up in 33rd place overall.
Nathan Brown, the American U23 ITT champion and will ride for Garmin in 2014, came in at 21st place.
With so many shadows on the road, it was hard to get clear photos of the cyclists, but I managed to get a decent one of Poland's Szymon Rekita, who finished in 18th.
At each time check, Frenchman Yoann Paillot preformed consistently and won the silver medal.
When the last rider came in, Australian Campbell Flakemore was bumped off the podium into 4th place.
Damien Howson, the other Australian in the race, was on fire. He'll be riding for Orica GreenEdge next year and they'll be pleased he can now add U23 ITT world champion to his palmares.
Lasse Hansen put in a good ride and made it onto the podium in 3rd.
Results
1st: Damien Howson, Australia
2nd: Yoann Paillot, France
3rd: Lasse Hansen, Denmark
Nearly an hour after some of these riders had finished, they still looked wiped out when I wandered through the buses.
