Ellen van Dijk and Victor Campenaerts retained their time trial titles at the European Championships by agonisingly narrow margins after the most dramatic of finishes yesterday.
Van Dijk won her third consecutive women’s title over the demanding 32.3 kilometre course around the streets of Glasgow but only by two seconds after the tightest of battles with her Dutch compatriot Anna van der Breggen.
Yet that seemed positively clear-cut in comparison to the winning push in the 45.7km men’s race of Belgian Campenaerts, who sprinted furiously to the line to pip the time of Spain’s Jonathan Castroviejo by a mere 0.63 seconds.
After two long, exhausting solo battles against the clock over undulating terrain, made more treacherous by intermittent rain, it felt almost cruel that gold could be decided in such a close fashion.
Van Dijk originally thought she had just missed the target time of 41 minutes and 41 seconds earlier set by Olympic road race champion Van der Breggen.
“I thought first that Anna had won by two seconds but then I heard it was me,” said the 31-year-old Van Dijk, whose official winning time was 41:39.
“So it was super, super close especially after such a long time trial and I’m really happy to be on the good side.”
The Dutch pair, making amends for their team’s failure to win the road race title at the weekend, were in a different class to their opponents, with German bronze medallist Trixi Worrack (42:48) well over a minute behind.
In the afternoon, with further rain having made the course even trickier, the men’s title looked set to go to Spain’s Castroviejo who, continuing the form that saw him help Sky team mate Geraint Thomas win the Tour de France, set the target with 53:39.41.
Campenaerts, champion in Herning, Denmark last year, had other ideas, getting out of the saddle to power over the final stretch at Glasgow Green and snatch victory in 53:38.78. Germany’s Maximilian Schachmann took bronze in 54:06.16.

Van Rouwendaal wins 5km open swimming
 Dutch Olympic champion Sharon van Rouwendaal won the first Open Water swimming title at the European Championships yesterday, leading from the start in Loch Lomond to take the 5km gold.
Van Rouwendaal finished 16.8 seconds clear of Germany’s Leonie Beck (56:17.8) while Italy’s Rachele Bruni won bronze in 56:49.7.