Filippo Ganna won Italy's first medal at the 2024 Paris Olympics, but silver was not enough. He was running for the gold medal, but fell 15 seconds behind Belgium's Remco Evenepoel, who won the time trial.

Belgium's Wout Van Aert took the bronze medal, 10 seconds slower than Ganna, while Britain's Josh Tarling finished fourth after a front puncture and bike change, and American Brandon McNulty was fifth.

Ganna had a good look at his medals on the podium and in the mixed zone, but was not satisfied with his silver medal.

“It's not the medal I wanted, but I lost to the real champion, Fuoriklasse,” Ganna said.

“I gave it my all, but I am not good in the rain. I followed my dream and did everything I could to make it happen. I can only thank everyone on the Italian team who helped me. I want to especially thank my coach Dario Coini, even though he was on the British team's car today, following Josh Tarling. I wanted more, but I still celebrate this medal.”

Ganna ran a negative split time trial, saving something for the final third of the 32.4 km course. He lost 7 seconds to Evenpoel in the opening 13 km and another 10 seconds in the middle 9 km. However, he ran the final 10.4 km at an average speed of 55.105 km/h, 15 seconds ahead of Van Aat and 2 seconds ahead of Evenpoel.

“I risked a lot in that moment. Perhaps someone was watching over me and wanted me to avoid a nasty crash,” Ganna said.

“I had to take my visor off because it was full of water and steaming. It was either throw it away or risk a crash. We didn't want to do that, even if it cost us."

”Unfortunately, we did our recon ride in the dry and in the sun. In other races, we could have done a final reconnaissance ride in the morning on race day. Perhaps that is something we should change for the future, but it was the same for everyone.”

Italian national time trial coach Marco Vero was confident that Ganna would eventually take the silver medal, stressing that he was struggling to get up to speed after corners in the rain.

Ganna's Olympic adventure was only halfway through the time trial. While Evenepoel, Van Aert, and others will stay in Paris and compete in next Sunday's road race, Ganna will head to Italy on Monday morning for his final training session with Team Pursuit. He will return to Paris a week later for the track race.

His Team Pursuit teammates cheered Ganna on using a large screen at the Montichiari Velodrome near Brescia in northern Italy.

“I go to Italy on Monday, take a day off the bike, and return to track training on Tuesday. Hopefully this silver medal will motivate me to go for the gold medal on the track."

”I am very happy with my performance and I am very proud of myself.

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