For Ellen van Dijk, it was her third time trial title at the UCI Road World Championships.

The Dutchman said goodbye to the rainbow jersey on Saturday and tucked it away at the bottom of her bag.

But it was true.

"I'm a little surprised to have won," van Dijk said at a media conference in Wollongong after his victory. I'm sure I prepared the best I possibly could, but I didn't think it was the perfect course for me."

"My last race was the European Championships and I didn't feel very good there, so I had to take some time off, reset and refocus.

"But it didn't help and you never know what can happen on this course.

"I'm just super happy to have won again. Like I said, I didn't expect it. It's like I said goodbye to the jersey yesterday."

Australian rider Grace Brown set the benchmark early on, sitting nervously in the hot seat to see if she could deliver home her prized rainbow jersey.

Van Dyk, however, was in the lead right from the start, and even on the more technical, corner-filled sections of the 34.2 km course that starts and finishes in the coastal town of Wollongong, she was in the lead from the first intermediate checkpoint.

Brown picked up the pace on the second lap through and around the city, but was unable to stop Van Dijk and retained the rainbow jersey he first won in 2013 with a time of 44:29, 12 seconds faster than Brown.

"My first title was when I wasn't the favorite, and it was really, really nice," Van Dyk said of his 2013 victory.

"Last year was very emotional for me because I had been chasing it for so long and finally got it, and I was like, 'Oh my God, I'm so proud of myself.' Last year I was chasing it for a long time and finally got it. It's a little more of a surprise."

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It may have been a surprise, but that doesn't mean she didn't work hard to compete against a course that wasn't ideal for her and did her best to make it happen.

"There were a lot of momentum changes, up and down, left, right, and corners," van Dijk said. I don't mind taking the corners, but I don't like to change momentum all the time, so we've been training for that the last two weeks."

"I tried to prepare in a very specific way because I always tried to change my rhythm. And that led to good results."