The Women's time trial of the 2013 UCI Road World Championships took place on 24 September 2013 in the region of Tuscany, Italy. The course of the race was 22.05 km from Parco delle Cascine to the Nelson Mandela Forum in Florence.
Ellen van Dijk from the Netherlands lived up her expectations as main favourite and won the time trial by dominating the race, beating perennial podium finisher Linda Villumsen and the surprising American Carmen Small.
Qualification
All National Federations may enter 4 riders of whom 2 may start. Besides of that, the outgoing World Champion and the continental champions may take part in addition to this number.
Participating nations
32 nations participated in the women's time trial.
Australia
Austria
Belgium
Belarus
Brazil
Canada
Colombia
Croatia
Denmark
Spain
Finland
France
Germany
Italy
Jordan
Japan
Latvia
Lithuania
Mexico
Mongolia
Netherlands
Norway
New Zealand
Poland
Russia
Slovenia
Switzerland
Sweden
Thailand
Uganda
Ukraine
United States
Preview
Ellen van Dijk, the Dutch National time trial Champion and the number 5 in the time trial at the 2012 UCI Road World Championships was the absolute favourite. She won many time trials in the 2013 women's road season. Of the 10 time trials she rode she won eight of them including the time trial at the prestigious Giro d'Italia Femminile and a week before the championships the Chrono Champenois – Trophée Européen. Van Dijk did not win two time trials, Emma Johansson from Sweden beat her in the Emakumeen Euskal Bira and Shara Gillow from Australia in the Thüringen Rundfahrt der Frauen.
Hanna Solovey, a Ukrainian track cyslint, won the time trial at the European Road Championships, the only race she rode before the World Championships. With an average speed of over 47 km/h it was the fastest average speed in a time trial of the season. Linda Villumsen, who was on the podium in the last four editions, and Evelyn Stevens were other podium candidates.
Schedule
Source
Race
Danish mountain biker Annika Langvad, who finished 6th in the end, was the early leader after setting a time of 28' 27" and stayed in the hot seat for a long time. German Trixi Worrack, the first of the final 10 riders to finish, took over the lead after finishing in a time of 28' 19". The main favourites started last and showed some fast intermediate times at the two intermediate time points after and . The Dutch Ellen van Dijk was the fastest from the start by riding 20 second faster than Linda Villumsen and 24 seconds faster than Carmen Small at the first time point. At the second split the gaps were 25 and 28 seconds respectively. Van Dijk lost one second to Villumsen in the final five kilometres but her margin was large enough to win her second world title of the championship after winning the team time trial with her squad on Sunday. For Villumsen it was her fifth consecutive time on the world championship time trial podium, but never won the rainbow jersey.
Medalists reactions
Ellen van Dijk
Van Dijk lived up the expectations as main favourite and won the time trial by dominating the race. "I'm super happy. It's difficult to describe how I feel now", she said after the race. "I'm so excited because I dreamt so long of this one and the pressure was high to finish it off. It's great to have won. My intention was to start fast but I wanted to keep going a bit longer than I did. I maybe got over excited and a went too fast, but I maintained the time difference and so it was all ok." This race was the seasons' main goal for Van Dijk. She had been tested on her time trial position during the season and found a better position which she was able to maintain for almost half an hour. Van Dijk told she practiced the course twice in August at 5:00am to avoid traffic and made video recordings of the course to get to know the turns. She had watched the video over and over again until she could dream it.