Team Sunweb achieved the double at the road cycling world championships when their men’s and women’s teams won the team time trial events yesterday. Giro d’Italia champion Tom Dumoulin, Lennard Kamna, Sam Oomen, Soren Kragh Andersen, Michael Matthews and Wilco Kelderman clocked 47 minutes 50.42 seconds on the 42.5-km course to beat 2014 and 2015 champions BMC by 8.29 seconds.
Team Sky, who were down from six to four men 11 km from the finish when Geraint Thomas and Owain Doull could not follow the pace of their teammates, took bronze, 22.35 off the pace. Sky had fielded an awe-inspiring line-up with Thomas, Doull, Michal Kwiatkowski, Vasil Kiryienka, Gianni Moscon and Tour de France champion Chris Froome, but they were not all in the same form. 
The finish time is taken on the fourth rider to cross the line. “It’s crazy. First the women and now the men. The team was so homogenous,” said Dutchman Dumoulin. “We may not be the best time trial team on paper but with this team anything is possible.”
The women’s team clinched the title earlier yesterday when Coryn Rivera, Leah Kirchmann, Ellen van Dijk, Lucinda Brand, Floortje Mackaij and Sabrina Stultiens clocked 55:41.63.

Poorly Degenkolb out of worlds
German team leader John Degenkolb has pulled out of the world championships in Bergen, Norway with a respiratory problem. “I won’t start in Bergen,” Degenkolb said.
The 28-year-old pulled out of both the Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espana this year, the latter because of bronchitis. “Believe me, it was not an easy decision,” added Degenkolb who won classics as diverse as the pancake flat Milan-SanRemo and the rough and tumble Paris-Roubaix with its cobbled sections. The Trek-Segafredo team doctor Jens Hinder told Degenkolb that racing in Bergen was inadvisable after he had struggled at the Vuelta because of an “airway problem” that had not gone away. “This is a big blow to us because John Degenkolb was a good captain,” the German cycling federation said.



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