The Colombian Walter Vargas, with a devastating performance, took gold in the men’s road cycling time trial at the Santiago 2023 Pan American Games, beating the Ecuadorian star Richard Carapaz this Sunday, who won silver in his debut in the contest
Also making his debut in these events, the 31-year-old coffee rider gave Colombia the first gold medal in the Chilean capital, with a time of 47:02.72 and an average speed of 51 km/h. In this way, his nation maintained dominance in the exercise of the men’s chronometer of these events since Daniel Felipe Martínez won in Lima 2019.
Walter beat Carapaz, Olympic road champion in Tokyo-2020 and the main figure of cycling in these Games, by 33.30 seconds, and Bermudian Conor White by 1:11.24 minutes, who took the bronze, debuting his country’s record in Chile’s medal table.
Vargas had the best time in the two laps (40 km in total) of the circuit arranged on the streets of Maipo Island, a small city of 36,000 inhabitants in the metropolitan region of Santiago.
“I am very happy with this medal because there were very strong opponents and it is not every day that you can beat an Olympic champion. I prepared very well and what my family and I had dreamed of so much came about,” he told the media. new monarch
The Colombian, winner of the Pan American Championship held in Panama in April, beat 15 cyclists from nine countries.
Road cycling awards points for the Olympic ranking for the Paris 2024 Games.
Results of the Santiago 2023 road cycling men’s individual time trial:
1. Walter Vargas (COL) – gold
2. Richard Carapaz (ECU) – silver
3. Conor White (BER) – bronze