Bevin excited by busy schedule

New Zealand’s leading time trial rider Patrick Bevin is set to juggle a busy schedule at September’s road world championships as he targets multiple successes.

Bevin, who led BMC Racing to victory in the team time trial at the Tour de France, will enter all three disciplines in Austria.

On top of his BMC duties in the TTT, Bevin will also line up in the individual time trial alongside Hamish Bond, who guaranteed his selection by winning the Oceania championships this year, and provide support New Zealand’s main man, George Bennett, in the road race.

Although this will be his first appearance in the TT at the world championships, Bevin believes he is a genuine top-10 contender. BMC will also be one of the favourites for the TTT.

‘‘The team time trial and individual time trial at worlds are a big focus,’’ Bevin told Stuff earlier this month.

‘‘It’d be nice to have this gap in the year to get back into some time trial focus and the worlds course is really tough and a really hard one to read. But that’s the same for everybody. The guys who on their day would be the absolute best have had some huge seasons so it’s a good year for a guy like me to have a time trial which is really hard because it doesn’t happen that often.’’

Bevin’s best result in the TT came at the Tour of California, where he finished second. As previously reported by

Stuff, the team for men’s road race has been built around LottoNL-Jumbo rider Bennett, who is the only Kiwi rider capable of achieving a top-10 result on an extremely difficult course which is 258.5km long features 4670m of climbing.

Also providing support are Sam Bewley and Dion Smith.

Bewley is an experienced campaigner who performed his domestique role with distinction at the Giro d’Italia, helping Mitchelton-Scott team-mate Simon Yates plough through a week in the leaders jersey, while Smith created a slice of Kiwi history when he obtained the King of the Mountains jersey at the Tour de France.

Only one New Zealand rider – Julian Dean – has ever achieved top-10 finishes in the men’s road race. He finished ninth in 2005 and 10th in 2002.

Meanwhile, Georgia Williams has recovered from injury to spearhead the women’s road race team. She is joined by Grace Anderson and Mikayla Harvey, who will back up from the time trial.

Williams, who won a silver medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, fractured her hip, pubis and sacrum in a training incident last month.