Annemiek van Vleuten, who mistakenly thought she had won the road race on Sunday, left nothing to chance as she romped to gold in the time trial, winning by a massive 56 seconds over 22km.
It was the sweetest of moments for the 38-year-old in her last Olympics and a boost for the Dutch team who were left red-faced on Sunday when they got their calculations all wrong.
Van Vleuten, who suffered spinal injuries in a serious crash when in sight of gold at the Rio Olympics road race, was a class apart with Switzerland’s Marlen Reusser the only other of the 25 starters to get within a minute of her time of 30:13.49.
Van Vleuten’s team mate Anna van der Breggen, the reigning world champion, finished with a bronze medal, 1:01.63 back.
A laughing Van Vleuten joked “I’m number one right” at the finish on the picturesque racing circuit — virtually what she said on Sunday when she crossed the line celebrating, not realising that Austrian breakaway rider Anna Kiesenhofer had beaten her by more than a minute.
