Millar Slips to Ninth As Grabsch Snatches World Time-trial Prize

David Millar was a frustrated and bemused man yesterday after finishing ninth in the world time-trial championship only 33 seconds outside the medals, but the Scot accepted that he might be paying the price for an exceptionally long season of racing, which began in January and included the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France.

Millar was merely one of the crowd yesterday, one of 11 riders closely grouped around fourth place, whereas the winner, Bert Grabsch of Germany, was in a class of his own, 42sec ahead of the silver medalist, Svein Tuft of Canada. Grabsch is Germany's first men's world time-trial champion since Jan Ullrich in 2001. "This is always an unpredictable event; you tend to get an eclectic top 10," said Millar.

Tuft was little known outside north America until he finished seventh in the time-trial in Beijing last month. He came to cycling largely because one day he decided to go cycle-touring with his dog in a hand-built caravan. These were not easy jaunts but a series of 1,000km epics between Mexico and Alaska, sleeping out at night in sub-zero temperatures and living on what he could earn along the way. Not surprisingly, he yesterday had the look of a man who could not quite believe where he was, whereas Millar was turning his mind to Sunday's elite road race.

Today, however, Britain field probably their strongest team in the Under-23 event since its inception in 1996, with three of the five-man squad - Jonny Bellis, Peter Kennaugh and Ben Swift - in with a chance of equaling or improving on Bellis' bronze medal in Stuttgart last year.

All five are part of the road-racing academy, based in Tuscany, and part of British Cycling's young talent development system which contributed to the Beijing medal haul. Kennaugh is only 19 but is showing the same precocious talent as his fellow Manxman Mark Cavendish, with two wins in major Under-23 events in Italy this season, and Bellis and Swift have performed strongly enough to win professional contracts for next year.