Heavy rain creates road havoc at UCI World Championships

Slovakian rider Samuel Oros sets off from Ripon. Picture Bruce Rollinson

However well run an event is, nobody can control the weather and yesterday’s third day of the Championships was disrupted by monsoon conditions.

The men’s Under-23 time trial went ahead as scheduled, but organisers later delayed the start of the women’s elite TT, ridden over the same 30.3km course from Ripon to Harrogate.

Opinion among the male riders was split on whether their event should also have been held back, with some shrugging off the deluge as “one of those things”, while others felt it was too dangerous to race.

Fans in Ripon brave the horrible weather. Picture Bruce Rollinson

The former view was voiced by Swiss star Marc Hirschi, who was the third-last rider to start and came in 13th, almost two minutes down on gold medalist Mikkel Bjerg, of Denmark.

“It was pretty dangerous,” said Hirschi. “But we race outside and the weather is part of it. It is how it is.”

Belgian Ilan Van Wilder was among the fallers and had an opposing verdict. After climbing back on and posting the 37th fastest time, he told Het Laatste Nieuws: “It is super-dangerous and I think it is irresponsible to let it go ahead. It was no longer raining, but really pouring. You take the longest route to avoid puddles, against all time trial principles.”

The race’s most spectacular crashes were suffered by Hungary’s Attila Valter and Dane Johan Price-Pejtiersen.

Valter slid for several metres after coming off his bike on the sodden road. He gave a thumb’s up to a following television cameraman, but said after the finish he would need hospital treatment.

Price-Pejtiersen was last of the 59th riders to complete the course, more than 11 minutes slower than his victorious countryman. Just getting to the line was an achievement for Price-Pejtiersen who suffered a head-first crash. Recalling the incident, Price-Pejtersen said: “It was unfortunate, all of a sudden I was in a big pool of water so that was not very nice.

“It was very extreme, everywhere you tried to go you had to take the pools of water into account.”

Price-Pejtersen felt the race could have been delayed to see if conditions improved. He confirmed: “I have hurt my foot and it doesn’t feel very good, but the rest of my body is fine.”

It was Bjerg’s third successive title. Americans Ian Garrison and Brandon McNulty took silver and bronze.