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Cervelo Test Team fulfilled an important goal of their season by winning the team time trial, held in Vargarda on Friday evening. It is the only team time trial on the World Cup calendar and one of only a handful available in the season is targeted by several teams as they plan their year. Cervelo Test Team is as aware of the event as any of their competitors; they have after all, the prestige of never having been beaten in a World Cup team time trial. There have been three such events in the past four years (no TTT in 2007), additionally, Christiane Soeder (Austrian TT Champion) has been a member of the team in each race.

The weather in Vargarda was not as pleasant as it has been in previous years for the July events. After delivering above average temperatures for the World Cup since 2006, showers and wind were on the menu in 2009 on a cool (14’c) evening. That did nothing to reduce the enthusiasm of the participants, organisers or spectators; there was plenty of energy around as the seventh round of the 2009 World Cup took place.

Realistically, there were only a handful of teams who could hope to win the event. But even throughout the race, it was clear by the time checks that Cervelo Test Team were dominating their “pet event”. Such was their dominance, they were around one minute thirty seconds ahead of rivals Team Columbia-HTC and Team Flexpoint by the second checkpoint. They were also one of the couple of teams to finish all six riders together (the other was Fasso Bortolo Top Girls Roxy Line).

The race for the second and third podium places was less clear-cut. Team Columbia-HTC and Team Flexpoint were neck and neck throughout, with Equipe Nurnberger pushing hard all the way too. At the finish, less than three seconds separated these three teams. Team Columbia-HTC were second, Flexpoint third and Nurnberg missed the podium by just half a second. Far from being disappointed Directeur Sportif, Petra Rossner (Team Columbia-HTC) saw the team’s second place effort as positive. 

Swede, Emma Johansson (Red Sun Cycling) knew that she had an unassailable lead in the World Cup competition. That did not stop her willing her team on throughout the 41 kilometre test, they finished seventh, 3”50 minutes down on the winners. She will wear the World Cup leader’s jersey in the Open de Suede World Cup road race on Sunday. A relative local, who grew up not so far away from Vargarda, will have school friends and her parents in the crowd to watch her compete. 

Thomas Campana (team owner, Cervelo Test Team) was pleased with the victory “It’s very good, it’s the third [World Cup] team trial victory for my team and it’s very important for us to be up the front here and get victory in the time trial.” He reflected upon the role played by the bikes and equipment used “It’s a 41.5 kilometre time trial and we had lots of crosswind sections where aerodynamics play an important factor, so I think that half of the gap we had, half the winning margin, was down to Cervelo and Zipp and the manufacturers who work with us. It makes a big difference.”  It had been a season-long plan for Kristin Armstrong to bring her experience and ability to the fore in this race. The Olympic Champion flew in especially from the USA for the event. “It was very important to have Kristin here. Last year, a major part of the victory was due to Karin Thurig, because she was in great pre-Olympic form and she was always able to accelerate in the sections where we had a bit of a problem and we needed a rider like that [this year]. I spoke with Kristin at the beginning of the season and said that it was one of the goals. She flew in and did exactly the job which Karin did last year. For me, that was one of the major factors in our win.”

A member of the winning team for the past two years, Carla Ryan, Australian time trial Champion, said “I think the conditions really suited us. Plus we have the best equipment in the world and the best time trial bikes, so we were really confident going in that we were the best team to win this race. We’re really happy with the result, its great. The team was pretty balanced and equal today. We’re really happy to have the Olympic Champion, Kristin Armstrong, come over from the USA to race here with us and it was perfect for the team because she’s really good and she brought us together nicely.”

Petra Rossner (DS, Team Columbia-HTC) “I’m very, very happy. I knew it would be decided between those [top] four teams and I knew after the second time split we were making up time on Nurnberg and Flexpoint. I didn’t even say the time split [over the radio] to Cervelo because they were already out to 40 seconds or something. But the girls stuck together and they raced a great race. I always said the race would be decided in the last ten kilometres and that’s where we gained time on Nurnberg and Flexpoint and that was the key to getting second place in this World Cup.”