The wet and cold conditions of the under-23 men’s World Championships road race played to the strengths of Australian national cross-country champion Matt Dinham, as he claimed the honours of best-placed local in seventh place. The result was also the home nation’s best in the U23 event since Jason Lowndes placed sixth in Doha in 2016.
Dinham finished seventh in the bunch sprint, three seconds shy of breakaway winner Yevgeniy Fedorov of Kazakhstan, and two seconds behind silver medallist Mathias Vacek (Czech Republic).
With a can of Fanta in his hand, a smile on his face and a full body shiver, Dinham stopped to talk to reporters in the mixed zone, but not before his press officer wrapped a jacket over his shoulders.
“Honestly, I am pretty happy with how it went,” Dinham said as a stream of riders with exhausted faces caked in mud trickled past.
“Obviously there were a couple of really strong teams out there with experienced and older riders. It really just came down to the other boys. They did a really good job looking after me early on.”
With Fedorov and Vacek out in front on the final lap, behind it was a race for bronze with Dinham one of the riders to animate what was ultimately a failed chase attempt.
“I gave it a crack on the last lap up the climb to see if I could get away and force anything but the way the race panned out, it was a bit too hard and I couldn’t really do much,” he said. “Especially with some of the strongest sprinters there, I am happy with it considering it came down to a sprint like that.”
The difficulty of the technical city circuit course with its 33 turns was enhanced as the race started in pouring rain and the conditions hardly abated for the following four hours. Dinhman proved to be one of the riders to benefit from the inclement weather that thinned the peloton across the almost four hours of racing.
“After the first few laps you work out where you can move up and which corners are slippery and which aren’t. I would say it just got easier due to the numbers thinning out,” he said of a race where some 59 riders dropped out.
“You just had less people to fight for position. Which was obviously really important with all the corners out there. I think it played into my strengths and made it a little more selective. Without having the same team numbers, it was a little bit easier to position against some of the bigger teams.”
Wollongong wasn’t Dinhim’s first World Championships on Australia soil. In 2017, he raced the junior cross country at the Mountain Bike World Championships in Cairns, where he also finished in seventh place on what was a very dry and dusty course.
And possibly at the cost of ostracising himself from the mountain bike community, Dinhim, whose dream is to race in the WorldTour, was quick to respond when asked which home Worlds was the better experience of the two.
“I’d have to say the road Worlds,” he said with a slight grimace. “You get bigger crowds and they have done a really great job with this Wollongong circuit. I think now that the locals are a little more exposed to the racing throughout the week, they are really starting to get around it. Thanks for everyone cheering out there today, I really appreciate it.”
And with that, Dinham was off to find a warm shower as one of the last riders to leave the mixed zone.
