Benjamin Dyball breaks Vincenzo Nibali's record at the Taiwan KOM Challenge, Simon Yates finishes outside the top 5

The brutal, challenging ascent of Mt Hehuan for the 2023 edition of the Taiwan KOM Challenge has taken place with 34-year-old Australian, Benjamin Dyball taking the win and in a new record time too.

Italian cycling legend and multiple Grand Tour winner Vincenzo Nibali held the previous record since 2017 but Dyball managed to summit the 86.5km climb in a mere three hours, 16 minutes, and nine seconds. That was three minutes and 45 seconds faster than Nibali’s best effort and a monumental ten minutes quicker than Dyball's previous best.

Team Jayco AlUla duo David Pena and Simon Yates were two of the challengers in Taiwan and spoke to the team's social media afterwards. “Today was really really hard – harder than I expected,” said Pena, who finished an impressive second. “I was thinking the last hour and a half to start pushing but it was maybe two and a half hours at a really high pace. At over 2,000m it was fog, we couldn’t see the road too good, but it was ok. It was really hard in the last 10km, steep, hard, and also the altitude. The last kilometres each time were harder.”

“It was a hard race today, I’ll tell you that, especially just after the off-season," added Yates, probably the best-known rider on the startlist. "All good fun. Me and David tried to give it our best but got beat by some of the other guys, but that’s how it goes. I really enjoyed the challenge and I’m sure I’ll be back another year.”