The Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling team of Charlotte Becker, Emily Collins, Lauren Kitchen, Dani King, Joanna Rowsell and Linda Villumsen finished in sixth place in the World Team Time Trial Championships, in Florence, Italy. The black and orange team completed the 42.8km course in a time of 53 minutes 43.69 seconds, to finish just 2 minutes and 33 seconds slower than winning team Specialized-lululemon, who successfully defended its title from 12 months ago.
“I think the riders were quite disappointed, but they did a really fantastic ride, and gave it all they could,” reflected Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling team manager Rochelle Gilmore. “Definitely there’s room for improvement next year and maybe, reflecting on it, there’s a couple of things we could have done differently.
“They would have liked a better result, but at the end of the day they had a pretty good ride,” she added. “A strong ride.”
The Team Time Trial was the final race of 2013 for Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling as a team, and, with the team currently fifth in the UCI rankings, Gilmore can look back with pride at an outstanding first year.
“Looking back, I think we had a fabulous season,” she said. “We’ve exceeded, not only our own expectations, but everyone else’s expectations too. Everybody in the team feels really good about the season, and that we did a really good season for our first year.”
“We’re already talking about next year,” she added. “We’re super-motivated to start a new season and see if we can better what we achieved this year.”
Result World TTT Championships
1. Specialized-lululemon
2. Rabobank-Liv/Giant
3. Orica-AIS
6. Wiggle Honda Pro Cycling
