11 October 2016 – Doha, Qatar : Amber Neben won the women’s Individual Time Trial at the UCI Road World Championships Doha 2016. The 41-year-old American edged out Dutch Ellen van Dijk and Australia’s Katrin Garfoot, who took the silver and the bronze respectively. The top three finished within a ten second-margin.

After two laps in The Pearl totalling 28.9 kilometres, Neben crossed the finish line in 36:37.04, averaging more than 47 kilometres per hour. At age 41 she became the second oldest Women Elite ITT World Champion, after Jeannie Longo-Ciprelli, who claimed the title aged 42 in 2001.

With Neben’s medal, the USA have collected a record six gold medals in the women’s ITT. France and Germany have four, while the Netherlands could not add to their total of three. For Neben, it was her second career World Title in the ITT. After her victory on a hilly course in Varese, Italy, in 2008, her title on the pan-flat Doha course proved her versatility as a time triallist. “This one is more special, because of everything that happened in between,” Neben said comparing her 2016 title to the 2008 one.

Neben started halfway the field, at the hottest moment of the day. German Trixi Worrack and Dutch Annemiek van Vleuten rode just before her, both setting the best time until that moment. Both the German and the Dutch girl were waiting in medal positions for quite a while, with Worrack pushed out of the hot seat when Van Dijk rode the second best time. The German eventually ended up sixth in 37:48.18.

Ellen van Dijk seemed to be on course to beat Neben’s time, when she set the fastest intermediate times at the first two sections, but she couldn’t hold on to the advantage. At the third split she was two seconds behind. With Neben watching nervously from the hot seat, Van Dijk crossed the finish line 5.99 seconds adrift. “I was using more energy siting there in the hot seat than out there on the bike. I feel sorry for Ellen van Dijk and at the same time I’m excited for myself,” added Neben.

Van Vleuten was finally pushed from the hot seat by Garfoot. Both the Australian and Russian Olga Zabelinskaya set faster intermediate times than the Dutchwoman. When Garfoot finished in 36:45.36, Van Vleuten had to bow her head. After her Olympic disappointment, when she crashed being in the gold medal position during the Road Race, she came seven seconds short of a World Championships medal. Zabelinskaya also bettered Van Vleuten when she set 36:48.56, leaving the Dutchwoman in fifth place. Val Vleuten put the blame on the wrong tactics she elected to follow : "I was a little bit too concerned about the heat and went slow in the first round to conserve my energy. I shouldn’t have."

Garfoot also set a pre-race plan which, in her case, paid off : "I had followed the Under-23 race and had seen that a lot of riders had struggled in the last 6 km. I wanted to avoid that. So my pacing in the first round was totally off. But I made up a lot of time and was good enough for a bronze."

Last year’s silver medallist Anna van der Breggen, who won this year’s Olympic Road Race and the Individual Time Trial at the recent European Championships, could not impress. She finished 13th in 38:48.30. "The heat was the same for everybody. I had a long season and I wanted to do well in Doha as well. But unfortunately that didn’t happen," said Van der Breggen.

. . . . Women Elites Individual Time Trial - 2016 UCI - durée vidéo : 3h35’11 . . . . .