Belgian Remco Evenepoel became the youngest man to win a world title in the time trial and the second to win both the road race and time trial in a career.
Evenepoel, 23, prevailed by 12.28 seconds over Italian Filippo Ganna. Josh Tarling of Wales took bronze, one spot ahead of American Brandon McNulty.
The cyclists traversed a 29-mile course with a series of late climbs in Scotland.
“It was maybe one of my biggest goals of this season to win today,” said Evenepoel, the first Belgian to win the title. “To do it on a tough course which is maybe not perfect for a guy for my weight.”
In the last 11 months, Evenepoel won a world road race title, a Grand Tour (the Vuelta a Espana) and now a world time trial title.
The only other man to win all three in a career was Spain’s Abraham Olano in the 1990s.
Before Evenepoel, Australian Michael Rogers was the youngest man to win the time trial, which debuted at worlds in 1994. In 2003, Rogers was an older 23 than Evenepoel is today.
Evenepoel, whose dad was a pro cyclist, is also the youngest world road race champion since 1993 (Lance Armstrong) and youngest Vuelta winner since 1961, according to ProCyclingStats.com.
In his Olympic debut in Tokyo, Evenepoel was ninth in the time trial and 49th in the road race. That came after a nine-month break following an August 2020 crash into a stone wall and fall into a ravine that fractured his pelvis and bruised a lung.
At the time of the previous Olympics in 2016, Evenepoel was a soccer player for Anderlecht’s youth team. He switched sports in 2017. He swept the world junior titles in the road race and time trial in 2018. He won the senior world time trial silver medal in 2019.
McNulty gave the U.S. its best finish in the men’s time trial since Taylor Phinney took silver in 2012.
McNulty would have provisionally clinched an Olympic spot if he finished on the podium, but he is still favored to be on the team for Paris named next year.
