The Belgian Remco Evenepoel became world time trial champion today in Glasgow by beating the Italian Fillipo Ganna (silver) and the Briton Joshua Tarling (bronze). Nelson Oliveira was the best Portuguese and finished in 6th place, 1.52 minutes behind the winner. João Almeida, on the other hand, finished 23rd and admitted that he had made mistakes in the first approach of the race that hurt him: “In the end he had more to give.”
Nelson Oliveira felt “really good” despite getting “the wind right in the face” in the first half: “I had to save something for the final phase. I did. And my body responded to what I asked of it. I I am very happy that I am among the best and that we have achieved our goal, which is me or João, to finish in the top ten.”
The Portuguese cyclist was sixth in the 47.8km in Stirling, Scotland, a race won by Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel, running 55.19 minutes. “We knew the competition was very strong, but we are also here and we have a word to say. We did our best and if our body lives up to that, we have to keep giving the maximum to reach our goals,” said the runner , who thus guaranteed an extra place for Portugal at the 2024 Paris Olympics in the time trial specialty. The vacancy is for the country and not for the cyclist who gets it.
The Glasgow 2023 time trial secured a second spot for every country represented in the top 10 of the final, in addition to those countries that will already have through the qualifying rankings for endurance races at the Olympics.
In total, four Portuguese swimmers (Diogo Ribeiro, Camila Rebelo, Miguel Nascimento and João Costa) and surfer Teresa Bonvalot have already qualified for the Olympics, with three athletes with an athletic score (Auriol Dongmo, Isaac Nader and João Coelho). , which will only be ratified for the year to which this new guaranteed quota in cycling is added.
The Road World Championship continues today and Portugal will be represented in the under-23 endurance race by Alexandre Montez, António Morgado, Daniel Lima, Diogo Gonçalves and Gonçalo Tavares.
Source: DN
