{"id":19256,"date":"2015-09-28T09:50:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-28T08:50:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/2015\/09\/28\/close-call-for-girdlestone-at-world-champs-r3563\/"},"modified":"2023-02-08T09:20:54","modified_gmt":"2023-02-08T09:20:54","slug":"close-call-for-girdlestone-at-world-champs-r3563","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/close-call-for-girdlestone-at-world-champs-r3563\/","title":{"rendered":"Close call for Girdlestone at World Champs"},"content":{"rendered":"

South African Keagan Girdlestone narrowly missed a podium position in the Junior Men\u2019s Individual Time Trial after he sat in the bronze medal hot seat until the last four competitors were out on the route at the 2015 UCI Road World Championships yesterday in Richmond, Virginia, to tackle the U23 Individual Time Trial.<\/p>\n

\n\"ccs-62657-0-88367300-1443433875.jpg\"<\/a>Keagan Girdlestone focuses on his warm-up before his Junior Men’s Individual Time Trial where he placed fourth at the 2015 UCI Road World Championships in Richmond, Virginia (USA) on Tuesday 22 September. Photo: supplied.<\/span>\n<\/div>\n

A total of 57 riders took part in the 30 kilometre event where Leo Appelt gave Germany their first individual gold medal of the event, clocking a time of 37 minutes and 45 seconds.<\/p>\n

With Girdlestone in the hot seat, South African cycling fans and supporters were on the edge of their seats until the very end, when the final rider to roll down the ramp, Adrien Costa (USA) posted the second fastest time of the day to secure a silver medal and bump Girdlestone to fourth position. Costa finished 17 seconds behind Appelt while fellow-American Brandon Mcnulty claimed the bronze medal.<\/p>\n

Girdlestone (18) has been living in New Zealand for the past three years, racing mostly in New Zealand and Australia. The 18-year-old has spent the past two-and-a-half months in Europe, competing in some UCI Tour races (Ain\u2019Ternational-Rh\u00f4ne Alpes-Valromey Tour (2.1) and Ronde des Vall\u00e9es (2.1)) and some prestigious non-UCI events as well. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe first one was the Tour de Valromey, which was a nice hilly race,\u201d said Girdlestone. \u201cIt was my first ever tour and I managed to win the first stage and the tour overall. I carried on doing some racing there where I won some non-UCI races but they were pretty prestigious races, which is good for my confidence. This helped me to win my second UCI Tour (Ronde des Vall\u00e9es) which I did in France as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Girdlestone\u2019s fourth place was the best result for South Africa in the Junior category Time Trial at a World Champs. \u201cIt was a tough race,\u201d continued Girdlestone. \u201cIt [the course] definitely wore you out with bumpy roads and many corners so it was tough to keep a good rhythm. My first lap was pretty good but I definitely felt the fatigue kick in on the second lap but managed to nurse myself and just miss out on the podium.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ccs-62657-0-48607200-1443433875.jpg\"<\/a>Keagan Girdlestone (far right) sat in the bronze medal hot seat unitl the last 2015 UCI Road World Championships in Richmond, Virginia (USA) on Tuesday 22 September. Photo: supplied<\/span><\/p>\n

Compatriot Greg de Vink was the 12th rider to start in the first batch earlier in the day. Speaking of his performance, De Vink said: \u201cIt started off pretty well but perhaps a little bit too hard and paid for it in the second lap. Otherwise I think it was a decent effort with my power but I lacked leg speed in the downhills in the end. There\u2019s a lot that I can improve on and I need to spend more time on a time trial bike if I want to be competitive at World standard events.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Summary of results \u2013 2015 UCI Road World Championships (USA) \u2013 22 September 2015<\/h2>\n

Men Junior ITT<\/strong><\/p>\n

1.Leo Appelt (GER) 37:45.01
2.Adrien Costa (USA) +17.22
3.Brandon Mcnulty (USA) +59.74
4.Keagan Girdlestone (RSA) +1:07.73
42.Gregory de Vink (RSA) +4:23.28<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South African Keagan Girdlestone narrowly missed a podium position in the Junior Men\u2019s Individual Time Trial after he sat in the bronze medal hot seat until the last four competitors were out on the route at the 2015 UCI Road World Championships yesterday in Richmond, Virginia, to tackle the U23 Individual Time Trial. Keagan Girdlestone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":46732,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[2656,2207],"featured_location":[],"class_list":["post-19256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events","tag-keagan-girdlestone","tag-road-world-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19256"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19256\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19256"},{"taxonomy":"featured_location","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bikehub.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/featured_location?post=19256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}