Italy’s Ganna retains world time-trial crown

Italy’s Filippo Ganna retained his time-trial crown at the world championships in Bruges on Sunday.

The 25-year-old Ineos rider defended his title by beating local favorite Wout van Aert (Jumbo) by five seconds in a carbon copy of last year’s outcome.

Another Belgian, Remco Evenepoel, took third, 43 seconds back at the end of a flat 43.3-kilometer course in the opening event of the championships in the Belgian city.

“My shape has much improved since last week,” said Ganna, who finished second to Switzerland’s Stefan Kueng at the recent European championships.

“I did a small altitude training camp to defend this jersey and I hope to go looking for a third next year.”

Ganna missed out on time-trial glory at the Tokyo Olympics but led Italy to team pursuit gold.