Lorenzo Milesi takes shock victory ahead of Alec Segaert in U23 men’s individual time trial at World Championships

Italy’s Lorenzo Milesi took a close victory in the under-23 men’s individual time trial at the UCI World Championships in Stirling, Scotland.

Belgium’s Alec Segaert took silver just 11 seconds behind, while Australia’s Hamish McKenzie claimed bronze after finishing 50 seconds back.

Great Britain’s Josh Charlton looked set to claim one of the medals on the 36.2km course, but he was pushed down to sixth due to a mechanical incident.

Segaert, the pre-race favourite, was the fastest through the first two checkpoints but he faded in the second half of the course.

“It was crazy, so painful to watch Segaert as he was so close,” Milesi, who rides for WorldTour squad DSM-Firmenich, said afterwards.

“I went full from the start to the end, I didn’t measure the power so much because there was a headwind in the first part, I just pushed all the time.

“During the TT, I just thought about Segaert all the time and that I had to stay ahead of him because I knew he was the favourite. And now – it’s done.”

Milesi was the fastest in all the intermediate checkpoints and became the first rider to go over an average speed of 50 km/h.

Segaert came into the final kilometre with just over a minute left to beat his Italian rival. However, Segaert had passed Milesi’s time within 100m of the line on the cobbled road and finished 11 seconds down.

A late mechanical failure for Britain’s U23 champion Charlton allowed McKenzie to take bronze.