Remco Evenepoel beats Filippo Ganna and Wout van Aert to become Olympic time-trial champion

Remco Evenepoel is having a dream summer. After finishing on the podium of the Tour de France, the Belgian has won the time-trial in the Olympic Games; racing the 32-kilometer course faster than Filippo Ganna and Wout van Aert who filled the podium alongside him.

The time-trial still took place under rainy conditions as was the case with the women's race, but riders were warned and took less risks in the corners. This made it a tougher time-trial, with Alberto Bettiol putting in the first strong time. Ryan Mullen and Mathias Vacek quickly took over the hot seat shortly after.

Joshua Tarling, one of the main favourites for victory, was forced to make a bike change early in his effort which severely undermined his effort. INEOS teammate and American Magnus Sheffield also crashed after putting in a strong time in the start.

On the first intermediate point Remco Evenepoel was the fastest, taking 7 seconds on Filippo Ganna, 9 on Wout van Aert but only 13 on Tarling who had lost significant time with the bike change. Luke Plapp in the meantime also crashed, leaving the fight for the podium with one rider less. Filippo Ganna also had an incredible near-miss that surely increased his heart rate quite a bit.

Evenepoel was the fastest over the second intermediate point, 11 seconds over van Aert, 16 over Ganna and 17 over Tarling. Van Aert took an entire minute on Stefan Bissegger when he crossed the finish line and this was a strong enough time to hold off Tarling to the line who spent 2 seconds more over the 32 kilometers.

It looked like Ganna was going out of the podium but the absolute opposite proved to be the case. The Italian, despite his setback, did not lose confidence in the wet corners and crossed the finish line a whole 10 seconds faster than Evenepoel.