Söderqvist soars to glory in Worlds U23 men's time trial

It was part two of the under-23 time trials in Rwanda on Monday after the women's race was won by Zoe Bäckstedt in the morning.

Awaiting the men's talents of the future was a 31.2km effort against the clock, which took in 460 metres of climbing across the course in Kigali.

As the day began and the riders gradually began to trickle over the line, Mateusz Gajdulewicz (Poland) had set a solid time of 32:25 and an average speed of 49.2 kphh, with Héctor Álvarez (Spain) the closest of the early finishers, just 11 seconds off of the time set by the Pole. It was clear Gajdulewicz couldn't remain comfortable as the favourites got underway.

Nate Pringle (New Zealand) rocketed out of the start as he was fastest through the first two time checks on the course ahead of Gajdulewicz.

Jonas Walton (Canada) moved into the hot seat by just a single second after a quite phenomenal pacing plan in the final third of the course, which propelled him into the hotseat with numerous riders still yet to finish their effort. Soon afterwards, however, the aforementioned Pringle went on to top Walton's time by 22 seconds with a time of 39:28.

The big pre-race favourite Jakob Söderqvist (Sweden) was yet to finish, however, and he was soaring on the course. He was fastest through the first intermediate check by 23 seconds over Maxime Decomble and he was 30 seconds faster than the provisional leader, Pringle, through the second.

Söderqvist never looked like losing out on glory, as he continued his effort strongly to go an soar to a brilliant victory.

Back behind him, the podium was closely contested with Pringle second at 1:04 and Decomble third, less than a second off silver. Lorenzo Finn (Italy) finished four seconds behind Pringle in fourth place.