THIS WEEK IN PRO CYCLING
Belgium's Cornu wins U23 TT
Belgian Dominique Cornu upset the favorites Tuesday to win the U-23 men’s time trial, giving Belgium its first medal of the 2006 world road cycling championships.
Racing under mostly sunny skies with a slight breeze, the 22-year-old Belgian turned a time of 49:28.42 to beat defending champion Mikhail Ignatiev (Russia) by 37 seconds on the challenging 39.5km course.
Jerome Coppel hung on to win bronze at 44 seconds slower, claiming France’s first medal in the U23 category since Frederic Finot took silver in 1998.
“It was a difficult race, working from start to finish. In the beginning it was very hard for me, it was painful, I thought I wasn’t going well. But the legs were feeling better after the first two hills,” said Cornu, who is set to race with Davitamon-Lotto next season. “The hills were not so heavy for me anymore. The course was good for me.”
Russian Alexandre Filippov set an early best time of 50:19.94 that stuck for more than 30 riders before the heavy hitters rolled out of the start house. It wasn’t until Cornu ripped through the finish line to cut nearly a minute off the time that the Russian got bumped out of the hot seat.
“In the final, I was thinking this was for the victory. I was two times fourth in the world’s, it’s not such a nice place to be,” Cornu said. “I wanted to be on the podium, so it’s No. 1. I am happy, Belgium is happy. Maybe we can have a big party tonight.”
Ignatiev – who will ride for the new professional Tinkoff team next year – couldn’t match Cornu, who was fastest at the first two of three time checks.
“This race I wasn’t so good. Last year I won, this year I didn’t,” he said. “Now Dominique was stronger than me and everyone else. This was good for … Belgium.”
The race was full of surprises for the 59 starters. Most astonished, perhaps, was Kenyan Chris Froome, who slammed into a race official who had wandered onto the course. Both toppled to the ground, but Froome was able to get back up and finish 36th.
America had two starters, with Steven Cozza finishing 30th in 52:15.87 while Brent Bookwalter was 40th at 53:22.21.
Cozza, 21, started strong and passed his one-minute man early on, something he said threw off his ride.
“It’s the best 39km I’ve done. I just wanted to go as hard as I can,” said Cozza, the U23 national champion in 2005. “I caught my minute man in the first 5km, but I think that might have messed me up mentally because I was too confident and I kind of relaxed a little bit, but halfway through I made myself go hard again.”
Cozza, who hails from Petaluma, California, said he was satisfied that a nagging injury caused by a weightlifting incident two years ago didn’t flare up during the hard effort.
“I didn’t feel fast, I was happy that my left leg wouldn’t give me problems – I’ve been having sciatic-nerve problems – and it didn’t, so I was able to go hard. That was nice because I haven’t been able to do that for a while,” he said.
“It’s been giving me trouble the past two years. It’s hit or miss, it’s been acting up on its own. This winter I want to take care of the problem and go to the some doctors. … This is my third road world’s – I did one ’cross – and out of all those, I haven’t had a good one. If I am in the top 20, I’ll be happy because I always shoot way too high and do way worse than I wanted to.”
Bookwalter, 22, of Comstock, Michigan, said his form wasn’t at the same level when he won the U-23 national title back in July.
“It was a little frustrating. I’ve had a tough last week. I’ve had a little knee problem,” Bookwalter said. “I took it a little easy in the first half and did everything with what I had. I only got to inspect the course once yesterday.”
Bookwalter, who hopes to graduate college before heading back to Europe next year with the expanded U-26 racing program in Belgium, said he wasn’t expecting to be with the best.
“Usually I am very critical about going over and over, but I was as happy how I rode it. If you had asked me three months ago, I would have said really high,” Bookwalter said. “I think since then my form has dipped a little bit. I am here for the experience and I am here to learn.”
Neither Cozza nor Bookwalter will line up for the U-23 road race Saturday. With only three spots available to the U.S. team, Tom Peterson, Craig Lewis and John Devine will be racing.
World championship time trial
Under-23 men
1. Dominique Cornu (B) 39.5km in 49:28.42
2. Mikhail Ignatiev (Rus) at 37:10
3. Jerome Coppel (F) at 44:66
4. Alexander Filippov (Rus) at 51:52
5. Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) at 1:12.69
6. Stefan Schaefer (G) at 1:21.28
7. Logan Hutchings (NZ) at 1:25.06
8. Simon Spilak (Slo) at 1:26.60
9. Peter Latham (NZ) at 1:29.03
10. Kristjan Koren (Slo) at 1:36.32
