Bruges (Belgium) (AFP)
Germany, with a more homogeneous collective, won the mixed time trial relay in the World Cycling Championships, Wednesday in Bruges, for Tony Martin's last race.
Slower than the Italians in the first lap (22.5 km) and the Dutch in the second (22 km), the Germans finally beat the Netherlands by 12 seconds and Italy by 37 seconds.
"Thank you to the girls who made the difference", greeted Tony Martin, four times titled in the individual time trial (2011, 2012, 2013 and 2016) and already present in the German team which took second place in 2019 behind the Netherlands in the first edition.
This time, the unchanged Dutch men's trio (van Emden, Mollema, Bouwman), at the origin of this gold medal, were clearly dominated.
He completed his course 42 seconds behind the Italian trio led by Filippo Ganna and 23 seconds behind his German counterpart (T. Martin, Arndt, Walscheid).
The Dutch, who presented two of the medalists in the individual time trial (van Dijk 1st, van Vleuten 3rd), were never able to erase the delay over the three Germans, already present in 2019 (Brennauer, Klein, Kroeger).
- Küng still overwhelmed -
"We hoped for the gold medal," admitted Tony Martin who announced Sunday his decision to hang up the bike after these Worlds, at the age of 36.
"We're going to celebrate now and then I'll go on vacation with my family."
Italy, European champion, narrowly preserved its place on the podium.
She deprived Switzerland of the bronze medal, within 5 hundredths of a second.
That is to say an even narrower margin than that which had already overwhelmed Stefan Küng this summer.
The European time trial champion finished fourth in the Tokyo Olympics, 4 tenths of a second behind Australian Rohan Dennis (3rd).
The German team, world champion in the mixed time trial relay, on September 22, 2021 in Bruges ERIC LALMAND BELGA / AFP
France, with a group made up of training chasers, took 9th place, 2 minutes 52 from Germany.
The puncture of Benjamin Thomas after ten kilometers, did not help anything.
"We were a little disturbed but we were able to react, we knew what to do in the event of an incident," said the bronze medalist on track at the Tokyo Olympics.
"We are proud of ourselves. In the future, we will come back to work on this discipline again", added the Tarnais, approved by Clara Copponi: "It was rather clean technically. We like the event, we will come back!"
© 2021 AFP