ROUBAIX, FRANCE (AFP) – Jeffrey Hoogland’s sizzling 58.418sec ride won gold in the men’s 1km time-trial at the track cycling world championships on Friday (Oct 22).
At a packed Roubaix indoor stadium, the Dutchman was over a second faster than 23-year-old Nicholas Paul of Trinidad, who also rode a sub one minute 59.791sec, only to watch Hoogland set out last in an event where riders race the clock solo one after the other.
Earlier, France’s Benjamin Thomas won the 160-lap men’s points race.
The 40km race contains 16 sprints and Thomas had been trailing by some distance to Belgian veteran Kenny De Ketele before a storming finale after drawing level with 20 laps to go.
“I know him and I doubted I’d catch him because he’s a foxy one,” Thomas said of De Ketele.
“I knew he was going to make my life hard so I just went all in and the crowd got behind me.”
Friday is the third day of the world track cycling championships at Roubaix near the Belgian border with the men’s individual pursuit finals still to come.