Silver lining for Brändli

Nicole Braendli sprints to the finish line to clock the second fastest time. www.fpc2001.com

Swiss cyclist Nicole Brändli has won the silver medal in the women's time trial at the world road championships in Lisbon. The 21-year-old from Horgen in canton Zurich came agonisingly close to winning Wednesday's event, after finishing less than half a second slower than French veteran Jeannie Longo.

Brändli set a blisteringly fast pace in the Portuguese heat to complete the 19.2 kilometre course in a time of 29’08″55. But in a battle of the generations the 42-year-old Longo came out on top, lopping a mere 41 hundredths of a second off Brändli’s time.

It proved enough to bring Longo the 13th world championship title of her incredible career. Her first was won in 1979, the year of Brändli’s birth.

“I knew that it would be close,” Brändli said with tears in her eyes. Her aim was to win a medal, “which should have been gold,” the 21-year-old admitted. “It would have been great to win the title and I came very close. That’s why I was very disappointed at first.”

Despite the disappointment of missing out on the gold, the young Swiss rider can take comfort from a performance that follows upon her silver medal success at last year’s European Championships.

However, Brändli was pleased with her performance and knew that she did everthing right during the race. “I had a good rhythm and coped well with the uphill sections,” she said.

The former athlete, who gave up competitive running after developing a problem with her achilles tendon, has also given a much needed boost to the Swiss team which came to this year’s world championships with few medal expectations.

Brändli’s medal win was the first for a Swiss woman at the world championships in five years.

swissinfo with agencies