Cycling
ESPN staff 7y

Team Sunweb complete Team Time Trial World Championships double

Cycling, Endurance

Team Sunweb completed a Team Time Trial double at the World Championships as their men and women's teams claimed top spot in Bergen, Norway.

Having seen the women's team clinch victory early Sunday, Tom Dumoulin, Lennard Kämna, Wilco Keldermann, Soren Kragh Andersen, Michael Matthews and Sam Oomen finished eight seconds clear of BMC Racing and a further 14 seconds ahead of Chris Froome and Team Sky. 

It was a nail-biting wait for Sunweb who had started three minutes in front of Sky, who had eclipsed the Sunweb's time through the first checkpoint. But Sky faltered through the rest of the course, crossing the line with four riders.

That left BMC as the only challenger yet to finish and having gone through the final checkpoint fastest, it looked like they might pip Sunweb to top honours but that lead dwindled in the final part of the circuit. They settled for silver, pushing Team Sky into bronze.

"It's crazy, first the women this afternoon and then us," Dumoulin said after the TTT. "The team was so homogenous, it was absolutely amazing. Normally you'd say that I was the best time trialist on paper but with this team it was so smooth and we had a really good pace and kept it all the way to the line.

"We tried to keep it together especially on the long climb with around 10km to go which just worked out. We were all flying -- I don't have the words. It's really unexpected but very nice.

"We knew that we were doing a good time trial but didn't know the time splits until the finish. It was so close and so tense with BMC but we made it at the end. It's the team event of the year and we pulled it off."

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