Ten months ago, the look of total surprise on Remco Evenepoel’s face when he learned who had beaten him in the World Championships time trial and the way he spluttered ‘Who? Foss?’ summed up many people’s reactions on hearing that Tobias Foss had secured the biggest win of his career ahead of the Belgian.
Come next August 11 in Scotland, Foss can no longer be considered an outsider for the world time trial title, where the Norwegian will once again take on Evenepoel, Filippo Ganna and multiple other top names for gold over the 47km course.
But as the 26-year-old told Cyclingnews during the Tour de Pologne, the identity of his rivals is not the key factor in success or failure next week.
“If I perform well on the day, the podium should be within reach,” Foss said.
“I’m really looking forward to it, it’s been quite a difficult year with COVID and sickness, so I think it’s a bit like last season, the preparation hasn’t been 100 %. But I managed to win it last year, so I see no reason why I can’t do well this year, too.”
Foss has yet to reveal where he will be racing in 2024 and he told Cyclingnews there was “no news yet” on that score. Part of the Jumbo-Visma’s winning effort in the Paris-Nice team time trial, Foss has not had any victories this season in his world champion’s skinsuit.
However, even if the Scotland test is 13km longer than the Wollongong course, the extra distance in itself shouldn’t represent a challenge when it comes to defending the rainbow jersey, he said.
“Normally the national championships in Norway are at least about 50km long and I’ve done quite a few of those and normally I like them,” said Foss, with two national titles to back up his words.
“The longer the better, so I think it suits me well so it could be a good day. I’ve seen a bit of the Scotland course on the computer, after flying from here to Glasgow, I’ll use the first days there to do some recons of the course.”
The Tour de Pologne’s 16.6km time trial on stage 6 represents one final test prior to the Worlds. Foss believes that short distance suits other riders better than him, but he that won’t prevent him from going all-out in Katowice on Thursday.
“I’m not just here for the TT, it’s also to get the whole race in the legs,” said Foss, who last raced at the Tour de Romandie in late April.
“But at the end of the day, this [stage 6] is a time trial and I’ll be wearing the world champion’s jersey, so I will, I think, go full.”
As for defending that jersey in Scotland, Foss did not put a specific target on what he could do. However, he does believe that having one Worlds TT title in the bag is excellent motivation for taking a second rainbow jersey. Furthermore, he agreed with a grin, if he wins again, Evenepoel certainly wouldn’t be as shocked at the news as he was in Australia.
“Last year before the race I had a really good feeling about how I could make the top five if I had a good day,” Foss said. “And then I had a superb day and it was enough for the win. This year it’s basically the same: just go out and go full, execute the time trial well.
“For anyone to win you need to have a special day. So it’s hard to put a number on what I can do, but I still believe a podium could be well within reach.”
