CYCLING - ROAD: South Australia's Rohan Dennis (Adelaide CC) finished eighth after crashing in wet conditions in the elite men's time trial at the 2017 UCI Road World Championships in Bergen, Norway.
Dennis the reigning national time trial champion held the second fastest time, 10 seconds off the lead half way in to the 31-kilometre course with rain falling for much of Dennis' ride.
A crash near the 18-kilometre mark left him undeterred as he quickly remounted and continued full steam towards the climb of Mount Floyen.
Sitting 22nd as he started the 3.4 kilometre climb with an average gradient of 9.1% Dennis unleashed his climbing ability to claw back time stopping the clock in 46 minutes and 18.39 seconds. One minute and 37 seconds behind gold medallist Tom Dumoulin just 16 seconds from a podium finish.
Despite the frustration of another mid-race incident, Dennis was philosophical after the event.
"My splits before I crashed were good but I can’t think about it too much, it’s done."
"Today it was a matter of being dry on one side of the tunnel and wet on the other so it was just bad timing – I wasn’t expecting it to be wet on that corner and I can out and took it as if it were dry."
"I’ve had a puncture, I’ve broken a bike, I’ve crashed – there’s not much more I can do wrong, hopefully that is all the bad luck - or user error on my part - iout of the way, and next year is another year." .
Elite Men's Time Trial
1 Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) 44:41.00
2 Primoz Roglic (Slovenia) +57.79
3 Chris Froome (Great Britain) +1:21.25
8 Rohan Dennis +1:37.39
Full Results
