Horgan beats team mate to claim Oceania road cycling trial

Horgan beats team mate to claim Oceania road cycling time trial

16 March 2012

Sam Horgan from SUBWAY® Pro Cycling narrowing beat his team mate Paul Odlin in the elite men’s time trial on the opening day of the UCI Oceania Road Championships near Queenstown today.

The four second win over Odlin was New Zealand’s only gold medal on a day dominated by a strong contingent of riders from Australia.

Horgan and Odlin reversed their first and second placings in January’s RaboDirect National Time Trial Championships. Horgan clocked 46:23.75 for the 40 kilometre course, with an afternoon breeze making it more testing.

“The win means a lot. It’s been a goal of mine since the start of the year,” Horgan said. “I’ve been training exclusively for it. I was buoyed by my performances at the elite nationals. Paul (Odlin) and I have a good rivalry and we have motivated each other with some close recent results in local time trials.”

Horgan said he found the course hard with a road surface that was quite dead and slow and included a very testing final climb.

Horgan went into the event in good form after winning the Tour of Canterbury last weekend and breaking Odlin’s Canterbury Time Trial Association 16 kilometre time trial record two weeks ago.

Former track world champion and SUBWAY® Pro Cycling General Manager, Hayden Godfrey was thrilled with the effort of both riders.

"It could have been either of them on the day. They were never more than 10 seconds apart in time checks. Subway Pro Cycling has two very talented time trial riders. Both came down wanting a medal, preferring a gold one, and for both to get first and second is a fantastic result."

Attention now turns to Sunday’s elite men’s 153 kilometre road race where Horgan and Odlin are being joined by SUBWAY® Pro Cycling team mates Dillon Bennett and Nick Lovegrove.

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