Quinn Simmons made great strides in his comeback from five months away from racing, finishing in the top 10 of the elite men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Zurich on Sunday.
Finishing in ninth place, 2:18 off the extraordinary pace of new world champion Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia), Simmons was the best rider from the USA of what he called "the best team we fielded in years".
"We have a lot of super strong riders - maybe the team didn't expect it was the day for me, but I had a feeling that it was a course on a super good day, it would fit me," Simmons said.
Simmons was active throughout the closing stages of the 273.9-kilometre race, fighting amongst an elite group of riders who had been pursuing Pogačar for the final 100 kilometres after the Tour de France and Giro d'Italia winner launched an unexpected early attack.
As the race exploded behind Pogačar, Simmons said he "lost count of how many times I was dropped" but he had faith he could come back. "I just kept fighting and rode through the groups and eventually was up there."
Ninth place he said "is not a huge result", but considering he was out of competition for five months for reasons that have yet to be made public. Until he started the Vuelta a Burgos in August, he hadn't raced since dropping out of Strade Bianche in March.
"I'm just now coming back to racing, so this is my best result in a big one day in almost two years now. So I would take the boost from there and look forward to next year."
The 23-year-old made steady progress since Burgos, finishing second on a stage of the Tour de Luxembourg and finishing 13th overall in the build-up to Worlds.
Simmons had discounted his chances when he was named to the team, he said, but later changed his mind. "I thought we were doing a big mountain race. So I was thinking maybe it's not for me. And then you look a bit closer at the course, and I watched the U-23 race, and started to think I can go for a result."
The level of difficulty that Pogačar had put the field into proved to be too much, however. When asked if the race was hard, Simmons replied, "I mean, I did 7000 kilojoules. So you tell me."
"My teammate, Matthias [trade teammate Skjelmose], when he tried to follow Pogaçar once he says, 'when you go too close to the sun, you get burnt', and I got burnt. I have no idea how I was in the top 10. From the moment I tried to follow him, I was just full on the limit. So I have no idea how I did this."
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