The Harrogate finish is not far from Cold Bath Lane and rarely has a street held a more apposite name than on a day when intense rain turned the Road World Championships into a perilous, nerve-rending lottery. The women’s time trial, won by Chloe Dygert of the USA, and the men’s under‑23 event, won by the Dane Mikkel Bjerg, were both hit by the extreme weather, while the Harrogate fan zone was closed to avoid the turf of the grassy Stray becoming a quagmire. It was a day for wetsuits rather than skinsuits.
The men’s under-23 race on Tuesday morning began in rain that was merely heavy. The start ramp in Ripon was disconcertingly slithery, while the initial metres through a series of bends over cobbled setts in the attractive little market town turned into a test of bike-handling that all the starters tackled at barely walking pace. Out of town, each corner had to be taken with care, the more so because most cyclists rarely if ever ride a time trial in such conditions.
That was all tricky enough, but later in the morning the rain turned torrential, with vast areas of standing water appearing where drains had been overwhelmed. French cycling writers use the term “apocalyptic” for almost anything beyond heavy drizzle, but this was truly hellish, leading to a series of dramatic crashes.
The Hungarian Attila Valter lost control of his back wheel as he descended towards a tight right-hand bend, and began to aquaplane at more than 30mph, zig-zagging violently as he fought to keep control. He then parted company with his bike and slid some 100 metres down the hill on his backside. Cruelly, he then had to make his way back up, cleated cycle shoes skittering on the glassy tarmac, to retrieve his machine. “All good,” he reported later.
More spectacular still was the fate of the Dane Johan Price-Pejtersen, who rode full pelt straight into a puddle more than a foot deep, and was thrown off his bike in a vast cloud of spray. Not surprisingly there was debate whether the race should have been halted; the Union Cycliste Internationale has an extreme weather protocol but it has no provision for standing water. It caused a mix of reactions among the riders, with some calls for the race to be cancelled. That would, however, have created further confusion as those who had completed their race would have been at a disadvantage if asked to race again the following morning.
“It was like riding into a lake,” said Stefan Bissegger, who crashed after 5km. “I lost control and just plunged into the water, like diving into a bathtub. You can’t do anything about it. I was OK, but still, it could have been very ugly for a lot of people.”
There were rumours that the women’s race in the afternoon would be called off but in the end the organisers opted for a 30-minute delay while the roads were cleared. “It throws you, as you time your caffeine, your efforts, your warm-up,” said the British rider Hayley Simmonds, who ended up 26th. “They might have been better to postpone it until Wednesday.”
The women raced in conditions that were merely sodden, with the bigger puddles coned off, but that had no effect on the 22-year-old American Chloe Dygert, better known for five world titles as a track racer. There were 19 riders still to finish when she completed the 30.3km course in a time of 42min 11sec, but it was clear she would not be beaten as she crouched on the wet tarmac to recover. In the end, the silver medallist Anna van der Breggen was over 90sec adrift.
Wednesday sees the final time trial title, the men’s elite race, with the Essex racer Alex Dowsett a possible medal hope. The Vuelta a España-winner Primoz Roglic starts as favourite along with the Belgian prodigy Remco Evenepoel and last year’s champion, Rohan Dennis. But most critically of all, the weather forecast is merely for occasional drizzle.