Suprise start

ByEurosport

Published 27/09/2004 at 11:39 GMT

First-year junior Tereza Hurikova upset the favourites to take the first gold medal of the 2004 world championships. The Czech mountain bike champion finished 5 seconds better than American Rebecca Much, and Australia's Amanda Spratt to make up a podium of upstarts in the women's junior time trial.

"The uphill start I liked, so I went fast and kept the same speed to the finish," the visibly awed Hurikova said after her win, adding that it was payback for the mechanical trouble that forced her to settle for bronze at the junior mountain bike world championships.

Speaking of bikes, Much beat out Spratt by 3/10ths of a second riding a road race bike. The American time trial champion borrowed Olympic silver medallist Deirdre Demet-Barry's helmet to race.

As for the 16-year old Spratt, she's already got a gold medal to her name, winning the junior track title in the sprint in Los Angeles earlier this year.

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Pre-race favourite Sabine Fischer of Germany could not make up lost ground after a slow start and settled for fourth, while Roxane Knetemann, daughter of Dutch legend Gerrie Knetemann, finished sixth behind compatriot Marianne Vos.

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