Road World Championships: Benjamín Noval delivers gold medal for Spain in junior men’s time trial

The riders tackled the same twisty 20.3km course with 29 turns that the U23 women covered on Monday. After a technical opening descent, the race ran south alongside the St Lawrence River before turning 180 degrees and retracing its path to finish with the 400-metre, 6.1% uphill drag to the line.

The race was wide open, with last year’s winner Michiel Mouris (Netherlands) and runner-up Ashlin Barry (United States) both moving up to the under-23 ranks, while third-placed Seff Van Kerckhove (Belgium) was ruled out after being hit by a driver while training.

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In slightly overcast conditions and a cool 13°C, Zimbabwe’s Rohnan Nicholson was the first rider to leave the start ramp, setting the quickest time of the early starters with a time of 27:52.
His time in the hot seat would be short, as the seventh rider out of 68 riders, Vanja Kuntarič (Slovenia), blitzed his way to the hot seat, averaging 46.1km/hr, to stop the clock at 26:25.

For the next 40 minutes, Kuntarič watched as riders came close but were not able to beat his time, such as Jose Rodriguez (Mexico) who finished six seconds off the pace and New Zealand junior national champion Alex Botha, who came close in the two time checks but ultimately finished with the sixth-fastest time so far. Australia’s Lachlan Stewart started off strong, clocking only one second down on the first time check, but could not hold the pace and finished with a time of 26:51.

Vic de Smet (Image credit: Getty Images)

To the delight of the fans, Zachari Moreau put in an impressive ride. After a fast start, the Canadian lost some time through the flat middle section but finished strongly in 26:49, briefly moving into third place.

Spain’s Raul Lopez followed a different pacing strategy, increasing his pace at both splits before crossing the finish line with a time of 26:30, four seconds off the pace of Kuntarič.

Then the fastest time changed hands three times, first with the Netherlands’ Thijs Wiersma and then Norway’s Mads Furenes. Wiersma posted the quickest times at the first two splits, but Furenes steadily closed the gap, cutting his deficit from seven seconds to three before crossing the finish line in 26:10, six seconds faster than Wiersma.

But reigning Danish junior time trial champion Julius Løvstrup Birkedal was not far behind. After setting the fastest time at the 14.5km mark, Birkedal continued to increase his pace, stopping the clock at 25:38 to set a new best time, 32 seconds faster than Furenes.

Like many riders on this twisty course, Gijs Winter had trouble keeping the pace, after setting the fastest time at the first split, the Dutch rider had fallen back and finished off the podium with a time of 26:12.

Meanwhile, Spain’s Benjamin Noval was three seconds off at the first split, but then blasted through the flat section to set the fastest time at the next split. Averaging 48.2km/hr, Noval bested Birkedal’s time by 21 seconds with 25:17.

Noval then watched the final eight riders come through. Denmark’s Malthe Risbjerg was 18 seconds down at the second time check but could only claw back two seconds, finishing in 25:34. Belgian Via de Smet was faster at the first check but had slipped 10 seconds behind eight kilometres later. De Smet rallied in the closing kilometres to finish just six seconds off the winning time, moving into second and pushing Risbjerg down to third.

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Rank

Name

Time

1

Benjamin Noval (Spain)

25:17.35

2

Vic de Smet (Belgium)

0:00:06

3

Malthe Risbjerg (Denmark)

0:00:17

4

Julius Birkedal (Denmark)

0:00:21

5

Patrik Pezzo Rosola (Italy)

0:00:21

6

Antoine Salamin (Switzerland)

0:00:39

7

Sindre Orholm-Lonseth (Norway)

0:00:43

8

Lancelot Gayant (France)

0:00:48

9

Leon Atkins (Great Britain)

0:00:49

10

Mads Furenes (Norway)

0:00:53

11

Gijs Winters (Netherlands)

0:00:55

12

Enzo Hincapie (United States)

0:00:56

13

Kashus Adamski (United States)

0:00:57

14

Niklas Wiesmayr (Austria)

0:00:59

15

Thijs Wiersma (Netherlands)

0:01:00

16

Owen Kings (Germany)

0:01:04

17

Andre Free (New Zealand)

0:01:07

18

Vanja Kuntarič Žibert (Slovenia)

0:01:08

19

Timotej Michalik (Slovakia)

0:01:09

20

Raul Lopez (Spain)

0:01:13

21

Alistair Forsyth (Australia)

0:01:14

22

Jose Rodriguez (Mexico)

0:01:15

23

Andrea Tarallo (Italy)

0:01:15

24

Daniel Kuběna (Czechia)

0:01:19

25

Zachari Moreau (Canada)

0:01:32

26

Lachlan Stewart (Australia)

0:01:35

26

Gal Stare (Slovenia)

0:01:35

28

Maximilien Outlet (Luxembourg)

0:01:38

29

Luan Elsasser (Germany)

0:01:39

30

Rodrigo Jesus (Portugal)

0:01:44

31

Dean Woolley (South Africa)

0:01:44

32

Marwan Barhoumi (Switzerland)

0:01:45

33

Goncalo Costa (Portugal)

0:01:46

34

Tristan Hardy (Mauritius)

0:01:48

35

Alex Botha (New Zealand)

0:01:50

36

Evander Wishart (Great Britain)

0:01:50

37

Mikołaj Legieć (Poland)

0:01:51

38

Ollie Jirovec (Australia)

0:01:53

39

Jose Manuel Posada (Colombia)

0:02:00

40

Gleb Novikov (Kazakhstan)

0:02:01

41

Takumi Matsumura (Japan)

0:02:06

42

Bruno da Silva (Brazil)

0:02:07

43

Matas Kubilius (Lithuania)

0:02:08

44

Selmane Mansouri (Algeria)

0:02:11

45

Igor Mitoraj (Poland)

0:02:21

46

Freddie Winkley (Ireland)

0:02:22

47

Pavel Podluzhnyy (Kazakhstan)

0:02:23

48

Milan Husenica (Slovakia)

0:02:29

49

Rohnan Nicholson (Zimbabwe)

0:02:35

50

Carter Deveer (Canada)

0:02:36

51

Adrian Solis (Nicaragua)

0:02:41

52

McCRYSTAL Rian (Ireland)

0:02:43

53

Juan Esteban Sanchez (Colombia)

0:02:55

54

Omar Andrade (Mexico)

0:02:55

55

Hussain Alsafr (Saudi Arabia)

0:03:18

56

Juliano Ndriamanampy (Mauritius)

0:03:45

57

Brian Ishimwe (Rwanda)

0:03:48

58

Chung Ming Yau (Hong Kong)

0:03:52

59

Ryan Thompson (Cayman Islands)

0:03:56

60

Ege Erulku (Turkey)

0:04:06

61

So Tanaka (Japan)

0:04:12

62

Benjamin Perez (Chile)

0:04:17

63

Andersson Ajpacaja (Guatemala)

0:04:20

64

Pacifique Byusa (Rwanda)

0:04:36

65

Gokturk Yuzerler (Turkey)

0:04:44

66

Jaime Carreno (Chile)

0:05:16

67

Carlos Alexander Kee-Tui (Zimbabwe)

0:05:36

68

Jamaal Tablada (Belize)

0:06:03

69

Keith Enwright Jr (Belize)

0:06:20