By Martyn Herman
HARROGATE, England (Reuters) - American Chloe Dygert powered her way to gold in the time trial to end Dutch domination of the event at the UCI Road World Championships on a rainswept Yorkshire course on Tuesday.
The 22-year-old track specialist produced a relentless ride around an undulating 30.3km course and blasted over the finish line in Harrogate in 42 minutes 11.57 seconds.
Favourite and defending world TT champion Annemiek van Vleuten was more than a minute off Dygert's pace by the time she reached the halfway split, as was fellow Dutchwoman Anna van der Breggen, and neither could respond.
World and Olympic road race champion Van der Breggen took her fourth silver medal in the event, a massive one minute 32 seconds slower than Dygert, while Van Vleuten had to settle for bronze, another other 20 seconds off the pace.
The race from Ripon had been delayed for nearly an hour after torrential rain left huge puddles on the road, causing several crashes in the earlier men's under 23 race.
"I prepared really well for this and really worked towards this race," Dygert said. "I came to win and I'm really happy with the result."
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Pritha Sarkar)