Ellen van Dijk collects 3rd time trial gold at road cycling worlds

Ellen van Dijk defended her title and claimed a third women's time trial gold medal at the opening event of the world road cycling championships on Sunday in Australia.

Taking advantage of a technical course at the coastal town of Wollongong, south of Sydney, van Dijk maintained a perfectly paced cadence to beat Australia's Grace Brown by 12.79 seconds. Swiss rival Marlen Reusser took bronze.

In the men's event, unheralded Norwegian Tobias Foss had a shock win for his maiden world championships title.

In the women's event, Brown was one of the early staters and set a blistering time of 44 minutes 41.33 seconds around the 34.2-kilometre (21.3 miles) course which none of the other 45-stong field could get close to until the final pair of van Dijk and Reusser both clocked faster at the first time check.

Reusser then faded to finish more than 41 seconds off Brown's time, but van Dijk powered on to claim her third gold medal in a time of 44:28.60 over the two-lap circuit.

"It was the perfect course for me. [But] I never thought I would win today, actually," said the 35-year-old who won her first gold in 2013. "I had no idea how I was riding ... I paced my effort really well.

"It was nice to see Reusser a little bit ahead of me near the end, so I knew it wasn't a bad day for sure. But I was so surprised at the finish."

Olympic time trial champion and two-time world champion Annemiek van Vleuten finished seventh, more than 90 seconds behind compatriot van Dijk.

Foss clocked 40:02.95 over the same course for the biggest win of his professional career and capped a remarkable upset at the end of the opening day of the world road championships.

Most expected a gold medal showdown between Italy's two-time defending world champion