In the end Thomas just failed to add to the two Olympic golds he had won on the track as part of the team pursuit squad in Beijing and London, while Froome matched his performance at London 2012 when Sir Bradley Wiggins clinched gold. Tom Dumoulin of Netherlands secured silver on 1:13:02, with Froome’s (1:13:17) late surge seeing him leapfrog Spain’s Jonathan Castroviejo into third. The big workhorse hardly lost a second while churning up the Grumari and Grota Funda climbs, then tucked back into his time-trial position and lit off for the finish line.
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Froome, who also won bronze in London, was more than a minute behind.
“I can’ t be disappointed with that”. A few riders pulled out early but many others completed the course, the men logging 150 miles of hard riding and the women dealing with some wet, slick conditions.
As with the road races, the course is a hilly one, favouring the likes of Froome and Dumoulin over pure time triallists like Germany’s Tony Martin.
RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) – Fabian Cancellara bounced onto the Olympic podium with a little extra hop on top, for a fleeting moment making everyone forget the 35-year-old cyclist is on the brink of retirement.
‘I don’t know what else to say.
He is now expecting to start the year’s third and final Grand Tour, the Vuelta a Espana, on August 20, after having it on his Team Sky schedule since the beginning of the year. I should get a good training ride tomorrow, keep the body ticking over. “It seems to be the best road around here”.
But the three-time Tour de France champion never looked like challenging his Swiss rival as fellow Briton Geraint Thomas missed out on a medal.
In recent years, Cancellara’s results have ebbed, but the Rio time trial was an enticing target.
“I came into that corner a little too fast and the back wheel skipped out on the bumps and that was it”.
Experts like Britain’s former Olympic gold medallist Chris Boardman believe he may struggle to ride to the max this afternoon around the 34 mile course.
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“There are just no words”.
