Road World Championships: Tobias Foss shocks favourites in men’s time trial

The smile on his face said it all. Sitting in the hot-seat on the opening day of the 2022 UCI Road World Championships in Wollongong, Australia, Tobias Foss watched on as the final rider on course crossed the finish line. Foss blinked, shook his head and laughed in disbelief. He slapped his face multiple times, as if to make sure this was no dream. Then the Norwegian cyclist let out a guttural roar. A new men’s world time trial champion had been crowned – and an unlikely one at that.

Since recording the fastest time earlier on Sunday afternoon, the 25-year-old had watched on as some of the world’s best time-triallists had failed to better his effort. The final four riders to take on the technical 34.2km course were practically a roll-call of the best against the clock: two-time European time-trial champion Stefan Küng, two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogacar, recent Vuelta a España winner Remco Evenepoel and defending world time-trial champion Filippo Ganna.

These were the riders expected to triumph in Wollongong. Not Foss. The Norwegian has a reasonable palmarès: he won the Tour de l’Avenir in 2019, a race known for anointing future stars, won the road race and time-trial titles at last year’s Norwegian championships and finished ninth overall at the 2021 Giro d’Italia. But compared to the time-trial pedigree of Ganna and co, Foss had not even been considered among the pre-race favourites.

Yet one by one, the final four failed to better the Team Jumbo–Visma rider’s pace, of 40 minutes and two seconds – averaging a rapid 51.3km per hour across the course. Küng came the closest, only 2.9 seconds away, to take the silver medal. Evenepoel continued his recent Vuelta form to finish third, nine seconds back. But when