“Not good, mate,” was Josh Tarling's assessment of his effort in the time trial at the UCI Road World Championships on Sunday afternoon.
A bronze medallist last year, the Brit finished 23 seconds short of the podium in Zurich, Switzerland, where Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) soared to victory to defend his world title.
Tarling got off to a fast start on the 46.1km course, placing third at the first of three time checks, just 12 seconds behind the leader, Evenepoel. He then lost time on the climb to the second check, which he was unable to pull back on the flat drag along Lake Zurich. His finishing time of 54:18 left him 1:17 adrift of gold.
As he walked through the media zone afterwards, the 20-year-old cut a downbeat figure. “I never got going,” he said. “I conserved and then never emptied, and then I was empty, if you get me? It never came to me.”
Tarling had felt the same feeling of disappointment at the Paris Olympics last month, where he also finished fourth, having held hopes of winning.
“I’m not where I want to be. I just had a rough time,” Tarling said. "I cracked after the Olympics and then had a bad Vuelta [a España], and just messed up. It didn't go well.
“I just feel bad for everyone that put more in than me, in terms of the bike and the equipment and BC [British Cycling] with all the help. I just let myself down with the training. I basically felt sorry for myself and let some people down."
The young time trialist, perhaps overly critical of himself, was still stronger than a lot of the WorldTour’s most powerful specialists. Even on a self-professed bad day, Tarling clocked an average speed of almost 51km/h at the finish line, faster than former world champion Tobias Foss (Norway), and 2021 Olympic gold medallist Primož Roglič (Slovenia), among the 59 starters.
At August's Olympics, the Brit finished two seconds off bronze medallist Wout van Aert, after suffering a cruel puncture on the wet Parisian roads. He went on to make his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta later that month, where he placed sixth in the opening day time trial, before withdrawing on stage nine.
His next competition will be the six-stage Cro Race in Croatia with Ineos Grenadiers next month. “I’m going to try and get it going again for some of the guys in the rest of the season, but we’ll see,” he said in Zurich, adding with an eye on next year’s World Championships: “Onto [20]25, eh?”
