The World Championships are in full swing and the men’s individual time trial on Wednesday is a real cliff-hanger and more open than it has been for many a year. Lee Rodgers casts an expert eye over the course and runners for the Rainbow battle against the clock. Whatever the result, there will be a different ITT World champion from last year, but will it be a new champion or Tony Martin?The individual time trial is often seen as a test of brute strength, and whilst there is some truth to that observation, to view the race against the clock as a discipline for the purely powerful, for those lacking somewhat in tactical nous, is to do this event a great disservice.Jacques Anquetil: Finesse, elan, poise… and fast! The greatest time trialists are not mere powerhouses, they are in fact supreme bike riders, bestowed with immense power but also with great discipline, a supreme knowledge of their own capabilities and indeed their limitations too, and graced with a finesse that accompanies their massive strength. To have seen Fabian Cancellara in his pomp, for example, was to simultaneously be presented with a view of a placid ocean surface and another of a raging beast in the depths below, his upper body positioned in a Zen-like pose of meditation, still and steady, whilst his legs churned methodically at a wattage, kilometer after kilometer, that the rest of us could only marvel at. In the past 9 seasons, the event has been dominated...
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