France's Paul Seixas produced a fast finale to claim the Road World Championships junior men's time trial ahead of Belgian duo Jasper Schoofs and the longstanding provisional leader, Matisse van Kerckhove, who finished with silver and bronze.
Seixas completed the course a slender six seconds ahead of Schoofs, with Van Kerckove just a second further adrift. Australian William Holmes started strongly but faded to fourth.
Soon to turn pro with the Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale squad, Seixas has now claimed 14 victories in 2024, including Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour du Pays de Vaud and the Giro della Lunigiana as well as the World's title.
The 17-year-old calculated his effort perfectly on the flat, very straightforward 24-kilometre course starting and finishing in Zurich, starting steadily before finishing much more strongly, and he will now go to the junior men's road race later this week as a top favourite.
"It's a bit of a surprise, I don't know what I was aiming for - the best time trial of my life, but being World Champion is a fucking dream," Seixas said after the race finish.
"After five kilometres I was already suffering a lot, thinking it was going to be hard and long, but the final was crazy, I was: 'Ok, maybe I did something great today'. Then when I crossed the line I realised it was something really big."
Due to turn 18 on Tuesday, and with his family paying him a well-timed surprise visit in Switzerand to watch him win, Seixas said the upcoming junior road race was another target, but that after conquering the time trial, his Worlds was already a success.
Of the 66 starters on a dry Monday morning, Van Kerckhove set one of the best early times, blasting through each of the intermediate splits way ahead of his rivals. Kerckhove concluded a full 2:03 faster than the previous rider topping the scoreboard, Kazakhstan's Mikhail Podluzhnyy, and also pushed the highest average speed well beyond 50kmh for the first time, clocking an impressive median of 52.867kmh.
Rider after rider came through for the best part of the hour but Van Kerckhove still reigned supreme, with Carl Emil Just Pedersen (Denmark) and Conor Murphy (Ireland) setting the closest times of 28 seconds and 30 seconds behind the Belgian's top mark of 28:15. However, it was only when France's Paul Seixas turned out a very fast final section of the course, going from fourth best at checkpoint 2 to seven seconds better than the Belgian at the finish, that Van Kerckhove was finally ousted from the hot seat.
Shortly afterwards, when Australia's Will Holmes flashed through the first TT check two seconds faster than Van Kerckhove and roared past his minute man, Norway's Felix-Orn Kristoff en route to the finish, it was clear that the definitive medals battle was hotting up.
Holmes' effort faded slightly at the end, however, and he finally came home 15 seconds down on Seixas.
However, at the same time, Jasper Schoofs had placed a notable second place at the second checkpoint, just ahead of the Australian, to keep Belgian hopes of victory flying high a little longer.
Finally, though, measuring the pace on the deceptively flat course all the way through to the finish -as Seixas had done - proved to be critical to the outcome and Schoof's concluding effort on Zurich's broad boulevards was not quite enough to outpace the Frenchman. Schoofs finished a narrow six seconds down, though, ensuring Belgium netted two of the three spots on the final podium, while the young French racer could celebrate his 18th birthday 24 hours early with a well-deserved gold.
Results
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