“I ran him pretty damn close" - Dan Bigham narrowly loses out on individual pursuit gold to Filippo Ganna

On the track at the Glasgow World Championships, Filippo Ganna took gold in the individual pursuit, narrowly beating his fellow INEOS Grenadiers member, Dan Bigham.

Speaking afterwards, the British rider who works as a Performance Engineer for INEOS outlined his intention to gain revenge. “I ran him pretty damn close, I thought. To be completely honest, with four laps to go, the taps were open, I’m all out. It’s whatever I’ve got, and I just didn’t quite have it," he admits.

The eventual time gap between the pair was just five hundredths of a second. Bigham who had opened up an early lead before seeing Ganna slowly but surely claw his way back, could barely believe how close the final timings were.

“It’s like half a watt. Geez. I just needed that little bit more," he laments. “We were training together about a month ago in Andorra on an Ineos [Grenadiers] camp, and he said, ‘Yeah, I’m not doing the IP this year. I’m going to leave it open.’ I thought, ‘That will make it a bit easier’. Then the start list came out yesterday and he was on the start list. I sent him a message, and he goes, ‘I thought I’d make it a bit of fun.’ So I was like, ‘Alright, game on.’”

“I would happily sacrifice that IP [silver medal] every day of the week to race that team pursuit qualifying again,” Bigham concludes, referencing the fact Great Britain crashed out. “The team pursuit is the number one. That’s everything to us and to me as a rider, as well. Hopefully, in 12 months, we’ll be standing in Paris and I’ll have a medal around my neck that’s gold.”