Kiryienka wins time trial at road cycling worlds

Vasil Kiryienka has captured the men’s individual time-trial crown at the world road cycling championships, while Australian hope Rohan Dennis fell back to sixth after suffering a tyre puncture.

Kiryienka stopped the clock on a 53km course in Richmond in 1hr 2min 29sec, which was nine seconds faster than runner-up Adriano Malori, of Italy, and 26 seconds in front of third-placed Jerome Coppel, of France.

Italian Adriano Malori won the silver medal, 9.08 seconds slower than Kiryienka.

Phinney, who finished fourth in the 2012 Olympic road race and time trial, competed after missing the 2014 World Championships due to crashing and shattering his left leg at the May 2014 U.S. Championships.

“Kiryienka has been knocking on the door for a while”.

“I’m really disappointed. I was confident going into today and I did everything I could to prepare for the race”, Martin said. He was second at the first time check, too, but kept losing seconds all the way to the finish, where he was at a loss trying to understand what had happened. “Top ten was the target to qualify two places for the Olympics – that’s really important for me and for everyone at British Cycling”. After that, I completely lost rhythm. “It just wasn’t my day”. Martin crashed out of the Tour de France in July, and has struggled to regain his form after recovering from a broken collarbone.

The 25-year-old from Adelaide, who led BMC Racing to a second consecutive victory in the world team time-trial, had this year set a Tour de France individual time-trial record speed average of 55.446 k/hr (34.5 mph). I just want to spare a thought for my team, Sky, and what they have done for me.

“I had a very good preparation, never had pain, so I felt quite OK”, he said.

Steve Cummings was Britain’s best finisher, 1min 58sec down in 14th, while Alex Dowsett finished 2min 6sec adrift in 17th.

Cummings produced a strong ride to finish 14th while Dowsett was 17th, on a relentless 53.5-kilometre course from the King’s Dominion amusement park to downtown Richmond that offered little respite in the way of inclines or technical difficulty. The women’s elite race is Saturday and the men’s elite race is Sunday.