You might have thought Tyler Farrar won Wednesday's U-23 time trial after a big smile creased across his face when he was told his time stuck for a top 10. The winner was Mikhail Ignatiev, the Russian gold medalist in the 2004 Olympics 30km points race, who stopped the clock at 47:24.28 on the 37.9km course. The race Farrar wants to win comes in Saturday's road race, so a strong time trial simply bodes well for things to come. "I'm really happy with how the ride went, because time trial has not been my priority this year," said Farrar, who finished 10th in 49:08.56. "My big priority this season has been the Tour de l'Avenir and the world's road race." Farrar, who will be riding with Cofidis in the ProTour in 2006, got stronger as the race unfolded, posting the 17th and 18th fastest times, respectively, at the first two time checks before setting the third-fastest time in the final 9km. "I'm very pleased with how it went today. I really wanted to be in the top 10, so it would make really happy. That will help the confidence on Saturday," he said. "I was kind of riding the time trial open up my legs for Saturday. I like time trialing and I thought if I could do a good ride, it would be good. I felt like I paced myself about perfect. I prefer prologues, so this was a little on the long side for me." Farrar's ride was the fourth top 10 on the day for the U.S. national team. Three elite women were in the top eight earlier in the day, including a bronze medal by Kristin Armstrong. Steven Cozza, the national U-23 time trial, finished 42nd at 4:33 back out of the 59-rider field. The Madrid course is proving more challenging than many expected. Farrar said he was surprised by how difficult the race turned out to be. "The course was a lot harder than everyone was telling me," Farrar said. "This is a hard course. There is no flat road. It seemed like we were always going up or down and there's a lot of narrow, twisty sections. It's not too technical, there were only a few corners you had to come out of the aero-bars and even fewer to hit the brakes." In the fight for the overall, Ignatiev out-classed the field, winning by a comfortable margin of 34 seconds to Ukrainian Dmytro Grabovskyy, with New Zealand rider Peter Latham picking up the bronze. A winner of the junior world title in Zolder in 2002, Ignatiev set the fastest times at the final two intermediate checks. Grabovskyy was the last off the ramp and started strong, but faded in the final kilometers. Latham, meanwhile, was second-fastest in the final half of the course to snag the bronze medal, just three seconds slower.Results
1. Mikhail Ignatiev (Rus), 37.9km in 47:24
2. Dmytro Grabovskyy (Ukr), at 0:34
3. Peter Latham (NZ), at 0:37
4. Martin Mortensen (Dk), at 0:50
5. Simon Spilak (Slo), at 1:12
6. Mark Jamieson (Aus, at 1:26
7. Andrei Kunitski (Blr), at 1:38
8. Lasse Bochman (Dk), at 1:42
9. Tiziano Dall'Antonia (I), at 1:42
10. Tyler Farrar (USA), at 1:44
11. Dominique Cornu (B), at 1:46
12. Eladio Sanchez (Sp), at 1:49
13. Bart Van Heule (B), at 2:13
14. Sergey Danniker (Kz), at 2:15
15. Michael Schaer (SwiI), at 2:15
16. Ignacio Sarabia (Mex), at 2:16
17. Paul Martens (G), at 2:19
18. Henry Mendez (CRC), at 2:19
19. William Walker (Aus), at 2:22
20. Jérôme Coppel (F), at 2:24