Filippo Ganna took Italy’s first medal in the 2024 Paris Olympics but was not happy with silver. He was riding for gold but was 15 seconds slower than Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel, who produced yet another world-class ride to win the time trial.
Belgium’s Wout Van Aert won bronze, ten seconds slower than Ganna, with Josh Tarling of Great Britain fourth after a front puncture and bike change, with the USA’s Brandon McNulty fifth.
Ganna often looked at his medal on the podium and then in the mixed zone but was not happy with silver.
“It’s not the medal I wanted but I was beaten by a ‘fuoriclasse’, a real champion,” Ganna said.
“I gave it everything but I’m not great in the rain. I chased my dreams, to go for it and I did the best I could. I can only thank everyone in the Italian team who helped me. We’ve all worked hard for this since the start of the season, especially my coach Dario Coini, even if today he was in the Great Britain team car following Josh Tarling. I wanted more but we’ll still celebrate this medal.”
Ganna rode a negative split time trial, saving something for the final third of the 32.4km course. He lost seven seconds to Evenepoel in the opening 13km, then a further ten seconds in the middle nine kilometres. However, he covered the final 10.4km at an average of 55.105 km/h, pulling back 15 seconds on Van Aert and even two seconds on Evenepoel, even after almost crashing into the barriers at one point.
“I risked a lot in that moment, perhaps someone was looking over me and wanted me to avoid what could have been a nasty crash,” Ganna said.
“I also had to take off my visor because it was full of water and steaming up. I either threw it away or risked crashes. I didn’t want that, even if it cost me something.
“Unfortunately we did our recon rides in the dry and under the sun. In other races were able to do a final recon ride in the morning on the race that wasn’t allowed here at the Olympics. Perhaps that was something to change for the future but it was the same for everyone.”
The Italian national time trial coach Marco Velo was convinced that Ganna will eventually appreciate his silver medal and highlighted how he struggles to relaunch at speed after a corner in the rain, while Evenepoel’s centre of gravity gives him a slight advantage.
Ganna's Olympic adventure is only half done with the time trial. While Evenepoel, Van Aert and others will stay in Paris and then ride next Sunday’s road race, Ganna has a flight to Italy on Monday morning for a final block of team pursuit training. He will return to Paris in a week for track racing.
His team pursuit teammates cheered Ganna on via big screen in the Montichiari velodrome near Brescia in northern Italy.
“I travel to Italy on Monday, will enjoy a day off the bike and then get back into track training on Tuesday. I hope this silver medal will give me the motivation to go for gold in the track.”
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