Va Va Froome, looking to emulate Sir Bradley Wiggins’ feat of Tour de France triumph and Olympic time trial gold at London 2012, could only manage a bronze medal against the clock here.
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“When I reflect on it in a couple of weeks, when the emotions have settled down a bit, I can be proud of how I raced and got stuck into it”. “I’m really happy with a medal again”.
“Hopefully I’ve got another Olympics in me”. If I had lost by five or six seconds I would have been disappointed myself.
Froome reckons Cancellara’s success was a result of digging deep for one last time.
In the earlier women’s time trial over a Britain’s Emma Pooley – a silver medallist in Beijing eight years ago – trailed in a disappointing 14th after coming out of retirement to race in Rio. That’s definitely given him extra motivation, a carrot for him to chase.
He painfully tried to defend his time trial gold days later but finished seventh.
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.
He added: “I’m going to be around for another day”.
“I know I should be and I know I will be after tomorrow, but at the moment I can’t control my feelings”.
“I haven’t done any big training rides since the Tour”. “It seems to be the best road around here”.
His strong performance in the Tour time trials made him a trendy pick in Rio, but the work he put in to win his third yellow jersey – not to mention the grueling Olympic road race on Saturday – left him drained of energy, and he could only manage to slip onto the bottom step of the podium. “Of course I would have liked to have been in with a chance of going for gold but I gave it everything that I had today and at the end of the day I have to be happy with that.” said the disappointed Froome. “After missing out on gold in London and all the ups and downs I’ve had since then, this is just awesome to win the gold today”, he said. Against this field, and on such a hard course, we had doubts, but good doubts.
Without Australia’s Rohan Dennis – who maintained the fastest-ever average speed in a Tour de France time trial in Utrecht previous year – being held up by a late bike change, Froome would have missed out on the podium altogether. There are just no words.
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Rio de Janeiro (AFP) – Fabian Cancellara ensured his retirement at the end of the year would be golden by reclaiming the Olympic cycling time-trial title in Rio on Wednesday.
