UCI Road World Championships: Grace Brown shatters Demi Vollering’s time to take world title, completes sublime double

Grace Brown produced a stunning ride in the time-trial at the 2024 Road World Championships to win her first rainbow jersey and a historic Olympic and Worlds double.

Brown completed the bumpy 29.9km course in and around Zurich in a time of 39:16.04, with the Netherlands' Demi Vollering second.

Vollering attacked the opening stages of the course and set the fastest time at the second intermediate time-check, but Brown clawed back the deficit to ultimately win by 17 seconds.

Defending champion Chloe Dygert lost time in the hilly first section and could not pull it back as Brown continued to get faster and faster, with the American forced to settle for bronze - the same colour medal she achieved at the Olympics.

Germany's Antonia Niedermaier was fourth, 1 minute 5 seconds back on Brown, and retained her U23 world title with an extremely strong ride.

"It feels like I'm in a bit of a dream these last couple of months," Brown said afterwards. "These big goals seem ambitious but just being able to get out on the road and do it, and realise those dreams is really cool.

"I think definitely the experience of the Olympics and having that success on my shoulders already gave me a lot of confidence. I was riding into the last couple of ks and kept telling myself 'I can be world champion', and that gave me the strength to push all the way."

The Australian has enjoyed a spectacular twilight of her career, winning the Liege-Bastogne-Liege classic and gold in the Olympic time trial earlier this year. Having announced that she will retire at the end of the season she topped her final year on the road with another brilliant victory.

Vollering and Brown had been closely matched on the lumpy first 10km of the course, with Brown six seconds quicker at the first checkpoint, but that gap swung the other way by the next time check 10km later, with Vollering then nearly nine seconds ahead.

"I did have that information [of the time gaps] so I was pleased I was ahead at the top of the climb today, I expected that I might be a bit back there against Vollering because she's such a strong climber," Brown said. "I guess she attacked the middle of the race a bit more than I did maybe, and it took me a couple of kilometres on the flat to get into the rhythm after all the climbing, but I felt like I gained strength towards the end.

"It was a very different approach to the Olympics, I was very focused [in Paris], went over my plan a thousand times, had every detail dialled. I was a bit more relaxed going into this, I didn't have the same amount of time to prepare, but knowing that I've executed many time trials well, I could still be confident in my preparations and know that I could do my best.

"A lot of people are saying that [I shouldn't retire] but I'm still finishing up at the end of this season! I just feel really lucky to have had the end of my career like this."

By the final checkpoint it was clear that it would be between Vollering and Brown for the victory, with Belgium's Lotte Kopecky unable to replicate her winning ride at the European Championships time trial earlier this month. She finished fifth, behind Niedermaier, with Austria's Christina Schweinberger sixth and Great Britain's Anna Henderson seventh, just three-hundredths of a second slower than the Austrian.

Three-time world champion Ellen van Dijk was eighth, with France's Juliette Labous and Amber Neben of the USA completing the top 10.

The riders set off on a balmy late summer day in Zurich. The course set off from the town of Gossau with some long, steep ramps up to the first checkpoint at the 10.4km mark, and the lighter climbers looking to lay down a marker before the much more specialist-friendly flat second half. The second section of the course incorporated a long, steep descent sweeping by the Zurichsee before the flat run-in to the finish line in Zurich city centre.

Seventy riders rolled down the ramp and the times set got quicker and quicker; most riders gained time on the final, flat 10km to the line, and ownership of the leader's hot seat frequently changed hands. Australia's Brodie Chapman set the mark mid-way through the day of 41:42.85, but she was soon displaced by Van Dijk, who was 24 seconds faster at the first time-check and 41 seconds by the second split. The three-time world champion moved into provisional gold medal position, nearly 40 seconds quicker than Chapman, but would not hold the lead for long.

Niedermaier powered around the course and it quickly became clear that the U23 rainbow jersey would remain on her shoulders for another year. She superseded Van Dijk in the hot seat but Vollering was close behind, overtaking France's Labous and going 45 seconds faster than Niedermaier at the second split, having hurtled down the descent.

It looked as though Vollering might have ridden too aggressively and would pay the price for her fast start, as Labous continued to keep pace with the Dutchwoman, but she held her advantage to 48 seconds over Niedermaier at the finish line and would end the day with the silver medal.

Brown started well and looked in control throughout, and the margins were always going to be fine in a field of such high quality. She gained nearly nine seconds on Vollering between the first and second split and it looked like a two-horse race for the prestigious rainbow jersey, with Dygert 37 seconds adrift of the fastest time at the first split. From there it was a mountain to climb to defend her title and she finished the day 56 seconds slower than Brown.

The Australian continued to motor through the flat, final section and continued sprinting all the way to the finish line to extend her lead over Vollering to 17 seconds and claim a spectacular victory: a first rainbow jersey in her final season on the road.

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