Ellen van Dijk – Photo Credit: Flickr

Netherlands’ Ellen van Dijk won the women’s time trial at the road cycling world championships in Bruges. She defeated Switzerland’s Tokyo Olympic medallists, Marlen Reusser and compatriot Annemiek Van Vleuten to achieve the title. 

The 34-year old Dutch professional road racing cyclist was a world time trial champion in 2013. She set a time of 36:05.28 on the 30.3km flat course from Knokke-Heist on the North Sea coast to the centre of Bruges and claimed her second rainbow jersey.

Reusser won silver at the Tokyo Olympics and she came in second over 10 seconds behind. Meanwhile, two times world champion and Tokyo gold medallist Van Vleuten came in third and 24 seconds off the pace.

“It’s been a dream for so long to get that world title again,” Van Dijk said. “This year everything felt so good but there was always this Marlen Reusser who was so strong. I knew that I had a really good level but I also knew that she was super, super strong. In the last couple of weeks, she beat me in every time trial and I knew it would become super difficult… It was good that I had no idea if it was good enough because I started one hour earlier than the favourites.”

The 30 year-old Reusser was quicker after the first two checkpoints. She went nearly three seconds faster at the second but she lost time on the final section.

American twice world champion Amber Neben came in fourth while Lisa Brennauer of Germany was fifth.