Roglic and Van Vleuten win Olympic Time Trial Gold Medals

Primoz Roglic of Slovenia and Dutchwomen Van Vleuten won the gold medals in the Olympic road time trials

Primoz Roglic claimed Slovenia's first-ever Olympic cycling gold medal with a perfectly-executed ride in the road time trial to dominate the field by a minute on Wednesday.

The 31-year-old former international ski jumper flew around the 44.1km route at the Fuji International Speedway to better the bronze medal of team mate Tadej Pogacar in the road race.

Dutchman Tom Dumoulin, who had looked set to quit the sport this year, repeated his silver medal from the Rio Games, finishing one minute and one second behind Roglic.

Former time trial world champion Rohan Dennis of Australia was third, a further two seconds slower, with pre-race favourite Filippo Ganna out of the medals.

Reigning world champion Ganna, the last rider to roll down the start ramp, went off in scorching fashion and was 59 seconds faster than anyone else at the first intermediate split.

But while he faded, Roglic had paced his race perfectly and won comfortably in the end in front of a sizeable crowd.

2021 Tokyo Olympics Men's Time Trial Top 10

1 Primož Roglic (Slovenia) 0:55:04
2 Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) 0:01:01
3 Rohan Dennis (Australia) 0:01:03
4 Stefan Küng (Switzerland) 0:01:04
5 Filippo Ganna (Italy) 0:01:05
6 Wout van Aert (Belgium) 0:01:40
7 Kasper Asgreen (Denmark) 0:01:48
8 Rigoberto Uran (Colombia) 0:02:14
9 Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) 0:02:17
10 Patrick Bevin (New Zealand) 0:02:20

Van Vleuten wins Tokyo Olympics time trial gold

This time, there was no mistake. Annemiek van Vleuten is officially an Olympic champion.

The Dutchwoman, who mistakenly thought she had won the road race on Sunday (Jul 25), left nothing to chance as she romped to gold in the time trial, winning by a massive 56 seconds over 22km.

It was the sweetest of moments for the 38-year-old in her last Olympics - having suffered her fair share of heartache - and a boost for the Dutch team who were left red-faced on Sunday when they got their calculations all wrong.

The former time trial world champion was in a class of her own, with Switzerland's Marlen Reusser the only one among the other 25 starters to get within a minute of her 30:13.49.

Van Vleuten's team mate Anna van der Breggen, the reigning world champion, finished with a bronze medal, 1:01.63 back.

At the finish on the picturesque Fuji International Speedway, a laughing Van Vleuten joked: "I'm number one, right?"

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It was virtually what she said on Sunday when she crossed the line celebrating, not realising that Austrian breakaway rider Anna Kiesenhofer had beaten her by more than a minute.

There was crushing disappointment, though, for American Chloe Dygert, who despite being tipped as a favourite, finished down in seventh place, more than two minutes behind.

Dygert, who in 2019 became the youngest road time trial world champion, suffered a horrific crash in the 2020 world championship in Imola, with a deep laceration on her thigh that required surgery.

She was well off her usual pace, and looked in physical distress at the finish.

Van Vleuten is the second Dutchwoman to win the women's individual time trial at the Games, after Leontien Martha Zijlaard-van Moorsel in 2000 and 2004.

The last three editions were won by American Kristin Armstrong, who is now Dygert's coach.

2021 Tokyo Olympics Women's Time Trial Top 10

1 Annemiek van Vleuten (Netherlands) 0:30:13
2 Marlen Reusser (Switzerland) 0:00:56
3 Anna Van der Breggen (Netherlands) 0:01:01
4 Grace Brown (Australia) 0:01:08
5 Amber Leone Neben (United States Of America) 0:01:12
6 Lisa Brennauer (Germany) 0:01:57
7 Chloe Dygert (United States Of America) 0:02:16
8 Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio (South Africa) 0:02:24
9 Juliette Labous (France) 0:02:28
10 Elisa Longo Borghini (Italy) 0:02:47