Ethan Hayter rode to a fourth place today in the individual time-trial in Wollongong. A strong result, one that however doesn't display the true performance of the Briton, as a mechanical caused took out precious seconds away from him at the finish.
"I"m slightly disappointed. But fourth place is still pretty good isn't it... But yeah, slightly disappointed," Hayter said after the finish. He finished fourth, 40 seconds behind race winner Tobias Foss, and 31 seconds behind third place Remco Evenepoel.
He suffered a mechanical almost halfway through his effort, costing him valuable seconds with an unplanned bike change.
"As I was changing chainring... we have this new bike... it's that Shimano don't make chainring shifters on the new gears. I was trying to change chainring and it wasn't quite shifting so I pressed it again, and it dropped off, and there was no way to get it back on without the chairing shifter," Hayter explained. "So I had to swap bikes; it was the fastest thing to do that time. I think I limited my losses quite well from that point."
This incident cost him precious time, after he passed through the first intermediate point with a time only a second slower than Stefan Küng. He was riding a new Pinarello bike, which was relatively to blame for the issue. "The bike handles a bit differently with the different brakes and the different handlebars but think I did alright in the circumstances. I have no idea. It would have been nice to try," he added.
"40 seconds is quite a lot to win but it could have been close," he concluded. That will never be known, but the INEOS Grenadiers rider has shown immense quality to almost finish the race with a medal, and showing he's got the form to be a very dangerous wildcard for the road race.
Place comments
0 Comments
You are currently seeing only the comments you are notified about, if you want to see all comments from this post, click the button below.
Show all comments