Four years ago, Bradley Wiggins managed to win both the Tour de France and the time trial for Team GB, but it wasn’t to be four years later for Froome who also took bronze in 2012.
In far from great conditions all week for cycling, including Australian Rohan Dennis who was in sparkling form, until a malfunction on his bike, led to a replacement and in-doing so, a loss of time.
Other riders trying to set the pace, included Froome’s Team Sky team-mate, Geraint Thomas who briefly set the pace for the pack by coming in a respectable time limit and finishing ninth in the overall standings.
But it was left to Switzerland rider, Fabian Cancellera in his retirement season, to come home in 12 minutes 42 seconds to claim the gold medal, ahead of French rider Tom Dumoulin over the 54.6km course.
Cancellera, who took the silver medal in 2012 around Hampton Castle, finally got his hands on the coveted medal. “”It is pretty special. After the 2012 disappointment and many other ups and downs, now in my last season, my last chance, I knew it would be challenging with Froome and all others. To finish with another gold, it is not bad” the 35-year-old said.
Froome, overall was delighted with his podium spot after a tough 2 months “I can’t be disappointed. I’d love to have been in with a chance of gold. I gave it everything I had. Fabian was the clear winner. If I had lost by five or six seconds I would have been disappointed myself. Fabian was the strongest guy. I tried to hold back a little bit for the last lap knowing how hard the course was but I didn’t have any more.”
In the women’s race, it was left to a cyclist from America to steal the show in a wonderful race. Kristin Armstrong who was riding the day before she turned 43, had already won gold in 2008 and 2012 Olympic games after coming out of retirement in this period.
She came in ahead of Russian Olga Zabelinskaya and Dutch rider Anna van der Breggen in bronze position.
Breggen, was adding her bronze to her gold medal won in the women’s road race on Sunday. The Dutch rider took gold after her team-mate, Annemiek van Vleuten, lost control of the lead in wet conditions and crashed leading to severe concussion and fractures of her lower back. Britain’s Lizzie Amistead finished a respectable 5th after her recent turmoil in the sport.
24 hours earlier in the men’s road race, similar conditions saw riders crash on the descent out on the course. One of which was Britain’s Geraint Thomas who still managed to finish in 11th spot with Chris Froome in 12th.
The race was won by one-day classics specialist, Belgiums – Greg van Avermaet – who after six hours and 237.5km in the saddle took the gold medal.
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