Rohan Dennis crushes adversaries at Abu Dhabi Tour Time Trial
Feb 24 2018 08:41 pm CET
Photo of Rohan Dennis © Mary Cárdenas / CyclingPub.com
Rohan Dennis (BMC Racing Team) was the fastest at the Individual Time Trial of the Abu Dhabi Tour. The Australian TT champion proved to be superior to his competitors at the fourth stage of the race.
The fourth day at Abu Dhabi featured a route of 12.6 kilometres on Al Maryah Island and was the opportunity for the time trialists to show what they were capable of. Dennis was one of the favourites of the day and he kept up with the expectations by stopping the clock at 14 minutes and 21 seconds with an average speed of 52.6 kilometres per hour.
The Time Trial World Champion Tom Dumoulin also had all eyes on him and though the day started as planned, along the way he encountered mechanical problems that forced him to change bikes and made him lose all the time he had won in the first part of the course. In the end, the winner of the 2017 Giro d'Italia finished at more than 30 seconds from Dennis.
"It was hard to pace today with the wind so, power wise, I felt pretty good for February," said Dennis at the end of the stage. "It was tricky so I'm happy with the win. Tom Dumoulin had a mechanical but I still beat him by 31 seconds. We always say a bike change requires 30 seconds. It's never good to win over someone like Tom in that way.
"It's a shame that it actually happened but I think Dumoulin is still pretty dangerous. Valverde is looking good at the moment. I saw him going strong in the wind on stage 2. He should be good on the hills tomorrow too but I'll do my best to win the Abu Dhabi Tour."
The Australian is in the first position of the General Classification, followed by Sky's Jonathan Castroviejo and Sunweb's Wilco Kelderman at 14 and 16 seconds respectively.
SUBSCRIBE TO RSS FEEDS