The UCI World Road Championships blasted out of the blocks in Wollongong on a gloriously sunny Sunday with the women's and men's elite individual time trial events.
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Known as the 'race of truth' because it is one person and their bike against the clock without the help of teammates or countering moves of rivals of a road race, individual time trials continue on Monday for the men's Under 23 category and Tuesday for the women's and men's junior classes.
But on Wednesday, things ramp up in speed, skill and dynamics with the 28.2km team trial mixed relay.
Each team will send off their three males riders first over a 14.1km loop.
As soon as they finish the three women race the same loop. The mixed team with the fastest time are winners.
"An individual time trial is more a measure to what you know or feel," says UCI World Road Championship race director Scott Sunderland, a former European based Australian professional cyclist for 14 years, from 1990 to 2004.
"In a team time trial, if one of your team members rides a little bit quicker on the hill then obviously you need to stay with them. So, the emphasis in team time trials is with the team. In a team, everyone has to play to their strengths and weaknesses and you need to help each other through it."
Team time trialling is a sporting discipline that looks easy when it is done well, but the reality is that it is anything but. The dynamics are many and varied and for the duration all riders are on their threshold, both physical and mental.
"You never have a perfect match with the capacities and [wattage] outputs of every rider," Sunderland said.
"That's why they need to train together and communicating through. It's pretty hard to communicate and speak when you are doing a 190 [beats per minute] heart rate."
Sunderland is one of world cycling top race directors. He lauds the UCI decision to include the mixed relay event.
"This is the third year that the mixed relay event has been on the World Road Championship program," Sunderland said, who since 2019 has been race director for Flanders Classics in Belgium that organises the premier one-day classics in Belgium, including the Tour of Flanders; and in Australia he is the race director the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Geelong, Victoria that is one of Australia's two World Tour events alongside the Tour Down Under in South Australia.
"Having men and women together is great," Sunderland adds of the mixed relay.
"Some countries have better representation in the women's category than the men. This is a great way to balance things up and develop equality in men's and women's racing. I think it is a fantastic idea."
Sunderland gave a thumbs up to Sunday's opening day of the Wollongong world championships that will finish on Sunday with the 266.9km men's elite road race.
"I got to see how the [organising] team is reacting," he said after the women's elite time trial in which Dutch rider Ellen van Dijk defended her title.
She won the 34.2km race in 44 minutes 28.60 seconds by 12.73 seconds over Australian Grace Brown whose superb silver medal ride gave locals plenty to cheer about.
Third Switzerland's Marlen Reusser at 41.68 seconds to van Dijk.
"There has been so much preparation, pretty much 18 months here from the sport side," Sunderland said when asked if he was relieved or saw any issues that needed addressing.
"You're always happy when it kicks off and we are off and running. From now on we can just fine tune."
Sunderland said there are always hiccups after a major event starts, but says what emerged on Sunday were "small things, nothing major ... nothing the public or anyone else has seen.
"I know my skills sets, but I need to understand everyone else's skill sets. With anything like this, when running events, you need to be quick on your feet and that comes from experience and the knowledge I have been able to build up over the years. At the moment here, it is all green lights."
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