A strong Subweb team featuring Michael Matthews, Giro d'Italia winner Tom Dumoulin, Wilco Kelderman, Lennard Kämna, Sam Oomen, and Soren Kragh Andersen today succeeded at further dethroning the BMC Racing Team in the favorite discipline the BMC squad has made a habbit of winning: the Worlds Team Time Trial.

The Subweb outfit won the event in 00:47:50 on a 42.5 kilometer route in and around Bergen, Norway, which featured a 3.4 kilometer climb with an average gradient of 9.1% destined to spoil the rhythm of the time trial powerhouses.

"The team was so homogenous, it was absolutely amazing," Dumoulin told Roadcycling.com after celebrating the victory with his teammates on the podium. "Normally you'd say that I was the best time trialist on paper, but with this team line-up 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 10 kilometers to go which just worked out. We were all flying. I don't have the words to describe the feeling. 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."

BMC Racing Team claimed a second consecutive silver medal in the tough test against the clock that came down to a nail-biting fight to the line.
 
As the silver medalists in Doha in 2016, BMC Racing Team's six riders, Rohan Dennis, Silvan Dillier, Stefan Küng, Daniel Oss, Miles Scotson and Tejay van Garderen, were the second-to-last team to roll down the ramp in Ravnanger for the challenge, which was contested on one of the toughest courses seen in recent years.

With the most difficult section yet to follow, BMC Racing Team clocked the third-fastest time at the first intermediate checkpoint after 10.5 km of rolling terrain, 9.47 behind a strong Team Sky line-up, which featured Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana champion Chris Froome, Geraint Thomas, Vasil Kiryienka, Michal Kwiatkowski, Owain Doull and Gianni Moscon.

The tables had turned by the second intermediate checkpoint at the 31 kilometer mark which saw BMC, former two-time team time trial world champions, post the fastest time of 36'22".

With the last intermediate time check coming at 38.1 kilometer, BMC Racing Team continued to set the fastest time of 42:42 and with five riders still racing together, looked to be in a position to take a third world championship title as a fragmented and disillusioned Sky team fought hard on the climb.

With a nail-biting final four kilometers set to decide the gold medalists, BMC Racing Team was chasing the best provisional finish time of 47:50, set by the Sunweb team. The final section of the course proved decisive and with four riders left, BMC Racing Team crossed the line with the second-fastest time, 8'29" behind winners Team Sunweb, to claim a second consecutive silver medal and a fifth trip to the podium in six years.

"As we always do, we came here to win gold. It is sometimes a little disappointing to get silver but we're still the second-best in the world here in Norway. Team Sunweb's result is surprising but it also isn't. They have been competitive in everything this year and they had a great team here today," BMC's Rohan Dennis explained.

Team Bora-Hansgrohe finished 10th in their first ever UCI World Championship Team Time Trial participation. The team's time trial expert Maciej Bodnar described to Roadcycling.com how it felt to compete on the WC TTT course today. "It was a demanding race on a tough up-and-down course, marked by headwinds. We all gave our best today and I think we have to accept the result. We finished with four riders, which made the race tougher, but we have to look ahead and work upon what we learned from today's performance for the season ahead."

The women's team time trial event was also won by Team Sunweb. The winning six-rider team featured Lucinda Brand (NED), Leah Kirchmann (CAN), Floortje Mackaij (NED), Coryn Rivera (USA), Sabrina Stultiens (NED), and Ellen van Dijk (NED). The team stuck to a specific race plan to pull off a spectacular win.

2017 UCI Cycling World Championships - Elite Men Team Time Trial Results:
1    Team Sunweb    0:47:50
2    BMC Racing Team    0:00:08    
3    Team Sky Pro Cycling    0:00:22    
4    Quick-Step Floors    0:00:35    
5    Orica-Scott    0:01:03    
6    Movistar Team    0:01:19    
7    Team Lotto NL - Jumbo    0:01:20    
8    CCC Sprandi Polkowice    0:01:44    
9    Katusha-Alpecin    0:01:46    
10    Team Bora-Hansgrohe    0:01:55    
11    Astana Pro Team    0:02:16    
12    Trek-Segafredo    0:02:50    
13    Joker Icopal    0:03:08    
14    Sangemini - MG. K Vis    0:05:02    
15    Uno - X Hydrogen Development Team    0:05:10    
16    Team Fixit.no    0:05:21    
17    Team Sparebanken Sør    0:05:30

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