After two days recovery following the road race, many of the women’s field lined up today for the individual time trial at the Olympic Games at Fuji International Speedway, Japan. The 21.7 kilometre race was won with an average speed just under 44km/hour by Annemiek van Vleuten (Netherlands), ahead of Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) taking the silver medal, and Anna van der Breggen (Netherlands) the bronze.

Omer Shapira, representing Israel, finished fifteenth and was pleased with her performance.

“Aside from training, we were restricted to the race hotel so I could spend a lot of time focusing on recovering from the road race. Before I came to Tokyo, I wanted to do a top ten in the TT. I knew it was a very high ambition, but it’s what I set myself. After I saw the final start list I was reconsidering this as there were so many strong riders! Each name was better than the one before, and all of them big names in TT’s. My legs shook a bit,” admitted Omer.

“I decided to race without power on my screen. TT’s are all about numbers but I knew there was a chance I’d not like what I saw if I hadn’t recovered from Sunday’s race, and I wanted to avoid irrelevant thoughts,” said Omer.

“I pushed hard on the climbs, accelerated over the top and took a small recovery on the downhills. I tried my best and I feel like it was the best I could have done today. I stayed concentrated and am happy with my performance. I didn’t get my goal, but if I look at the big picture I was fifteen seconds outside the top ten. I can be satisfied.”

Chloé Dygert (USA) put in an incredible performance to finish seventh, while both Lisa Klein (Germany) and Alena Amialiusik (Belarus) gave their very best to finish thirteenth and sixteenth respectively.

After the conclusion of today’s road cycling events, the track cycling will start on Monday 2 August. The women’s team pursuit heats and finals will both be on Tuesday 3 August and feature both Chloé and Lisa.

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