Wollongong's first world champion is officially Dutch rider Ellen Van Dijk, breaking the heart of Australian Grace Brown, who put in a phenomenal performance in the UCI World Championships women's time trial on Sunday.
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Brown had the title in her hands for the majority of the race, finishing with a time of 44:41.33 but faced a nervous wait to see how the other competitors fared.
Van Dijk finished 12 seconds ahead of Brown in the end, crushing the dreams of the Aussie who looked for all money like she would kick off Wollongong 2022 with a home ground victory.
In the end Brown had to settle for the silver medal, whilst Van Dijk took home the rainbow jersey.
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The victory marks Browns first ever medal at the UCI World Championships, beating her previous best performance of fifth in 2020 in Italy.
Swiss rider Marlen Reusser finished in third position.
The riders had to battle a difficult course in Wollongong which was built for an all-round rider. The steep gradient on the latter stages of the course and the wind made it increasingly difficult.
Van Dijk was the defending time trial world champion heading into Wollongong and showed her class.
Post-race, Brown said that she was incredibly nervous waiting for the results of her competitors to come through.
"It was a long and nervous wait and I felt increasingly nervous," she said.
"In the end I could see the times coming up live.
"I'm feeling very proud of my ride but it was agonising," Brown said.
Brown smashed the difficult course, looking unaffected by the difficult gradient on the last stretch of the race.
"I just went as fast as i could," she said.
"It was a technical course and there was not much time to think about my pacing I just had to go as hard where you could and recover where you could.
"In the end despite not looking at what I was doing power-wise I think I paced it really well.
I really rode to my best today. I paced it well and I had good power. I'm really happy with my ride."
She said she was proud of her best ever finish at a world championships.
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"Ellen had a phenomenal day and she's a seasoned time trialist and she deserves the win," she said.
"[Pre-race] I thought that I was in the top four riders so I was hoping I would have a good day and be on the podium.
"[I felt] there was always a chance that I could win but I am stoked with second.
"My goal was to be on the podium and I achieved that goal. It would have been amazing to win it on home soil but I'm still proud."
Winner Van Dijk was extremely pleased with her third world title win.
"Every title has it's own story and even though I was the favourite I was nervous but I am really happy to pull it off," she said.
"It was an emotional win. I'm still processing it as it is a bit of a surprise.
"It's really a confirmation that I am the best and it feels great."
She added it was tough to compete in Australia because of the travel not allowing her to train as much as she would have liked to.
"It was a bit weird because I didn't race for a month before today so I had no comparison to other riders so I didn't know how I was going to go against them," she said.
"It was the perfect course for me. It had a lot of corners and put a lot of effort into changing my patterns.
"I had a good mental and physical approach and a great year [leading into Wollongong].
"This really made a difference and honestly I never thought I would win it today.
It was a positive performance from fellow Australia Georgia Baker, who finished in eighth position.
In the U-23's, Italian Vittoria Guazzini came first, Shirin Van Anrooij finished second and German Ricarda Bauernfeind finished third.
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