Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing) claimed the third professional US time trial championship of his career in a dominant performance on the 42km undulating course in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
The 25-year-old topped Tom Zirbel (Rally Cycling) by more than a minute, with Zirbel narrowly defeating LottoNl-Jumbo's Alexey Vermeulen by two seconds to claim silver.
"It was super difficult and I didn't really have a lot of fun," Phinney said after scraping himself off the ground following his Herculean effort. "But that's how it is with a time trial and I signed myself up for this event, so I knew what I was getting myself into. Honestly I didn't really feel very good. It was a tough mental battle the whole way. I started out super confident and then lost almost all of my confidence, and then gained it back and then lost it again, and then by the time I was on the way to the finish I had my confidence back.
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"It's easy to say that now but that's what happened. I thought I was going super slow and started to get a bit down. The course was also three kilometers longer than what it was supposed to be."
Phinney last won the title in 2014, just two days before a devastating crash in the championship road race took him out of action for more than a year. He's shown that he is back on track and worthy of the Olympic selection, should the national coaches give him the nod.
"I'm looking forward to putting the kit on for the first time, hopefully soon," Phinney said of his new stars and stripes jersey. "I was just here to show myself ahead of the Olympics and try to have a good ride. It's always good to get an hour long time trial in, which is something you'd never do normally.
"I couldn't walk for almost two hours afterwards. I still can't ride my bike and get my left leg over the left crank because I was cramping really intensely after the time trial. It's a weird thing to do to yourself that's for sure, but I'm happy that I won, and happy that I'm not in so much pain anymore."
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