Michael Rogers happy with his sixth place finish at the Olympics Individual Time Trial event
Michael Rogers of Team Australia was a pre-race favourite to grab gold medal at the 2012 Olympic Games men’s individual time trial event.
He rode brilliantly throughout the 44 kilometre race and maintained an average speed of approximately 50 km/h.
Rogers overcame Jonathan Castroviejo of Team Spain for the second consecutive time during the 18.4 kilometre check.
The three-time past winner of the race started off quite aggressively and sent a clear message to his opponents but his speed was just not good enough for the in-form Bradley Wiggins.
Wiggins is still fresh after an overall victory at the Tour de France and the cyclist continued his winning momentum to secure gold in front of the home crowd.
Bradley completed the race in a total time of 0:50:39.54 while Tony Martin of Team Germany, Christopher Froome of Team Great Britain, Taylor Phinney of Team United States of America and Marco Pinotti of Team Italy secured the next four spots in the respective
order.
"We're quite different from most Olympic sports, with people all over the place riding for professional teams and out of national teams”.
“I still take a lot of pride in taking the Australian jersey on. It comes to a close of my fourth Olympics and today was an emotional a ride as it was in Sydney [2000]".
“Yes, it's a bit of a different approach," Rogers noted.
"We talked the course through last night with Matt White, the Australian director of cycling, and then it kind of dawned on me”.
“I was able to make the click in my mind that conversion into racing for myself".
The 32-year-old opened his 2012 winning account with an overall victory at the Bayern-Rundfahrt and also bagged two stages at the race.
He occupied the second overall position at the Criterium du Dauphine, third at the Criterium International, fourth at the Santos Tour Down Under and finished fifth at the Tour de Romandie 2012.
Michael was making his fourth Olympics appearance in London same as his Australian team-mate Cadel Evans.
Stuart O’ Grady is the only Australian who has ridden more than the two as the London event marked his sixth participation at the race.
Tags: