Joshua Tarling is only 20 years old but there is no reason for him to be modest about his ambitions. The British time-trial expert as won the time-trial national championships for the second consecutive time this week, and is en route to be one of the main favourites to conquer the gold medal at the Olympic Games.
“I was a bit nervous coming into it – there are a few guys on good form and everything is getting close to the Olympics and it’s a last chance to get a TT in so I was a bit stressed. I just committed and hung on," Tarling said in a post-race interview following yesterday's win in Catterick. A rather hilly TT, but one where the INEOS Grenadiers took a dominant win, with 1:13 minutes over his closest rival Max Walker of Astana in the 30-kilometer course.
Tarling raced the cobbled classics this spring with a good outcome, but will skip the Grand Tours in order to specifically focus for the Olympic Games. After impressing in the mountains of the Criterium du Dauphiné, he rode to a comfortable win in the nationals. There is just over one month for the Olympic Games time-trial event.
"Last year, if you blew up, you could still roll fast, but the second lap this year I was three or four kilometers an hour slower. It was way harder this year, but it’s all going well," he said of yesterday's effort.
He will now take on a very important step of his preparation, heading to altitude whilst his teammates race the Tour de France. "I’m going to try and knuckle down after this and go to altitude for a few weeks. I need to sharpen up a bit, but I’m excited about the rest of the season," he concluded.
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