Stunning silver medal for James Oram

Oram on his way to a silver medal ©Graham Watson

Sep 21st, 11. 18 year old Kiwi James Oram had a brilliant performance at the UCI Road World Championships which netted him the silver medal in the Junior Men's time trial event in Copenhagen last night, NZ time.

"I came in here thinking that a top-10 performance would be great. And if I was lucky then top-five would be an absolute dream. So to get a silver medal is pretty crazy. It's not really sunk in yet," he said.

The Kiwi was the 10th of 55 riders to begin the two x 13.9km circuit. By the time he finished, 35m11s later, he was the fastest rider by an incredible 1m26s.

For 1h45m he sat in the hot seat as the leader of the race as one by one riders came flying across the finish line, but with slower times.

Oram said he did not have any pre-conceived tactics for his race.

"I generally just ride as strongly and as hard as I can. It was quite technical and was a bit windy but the rain did not come while we rode."

Bouyed by his home town crowd, it was Danish rider Mads Wurtz Schmidt who just managed to push the Kiwi down to second place, by 4sec, with 15 riders still to come. 

An Australian and Frenchman bettered Oram's intermediate time checks and threatened his podium finish, but the Kiwis huge surge in the final 8km - he had the fastest second lap time of all the riders - meant he held on to the silver medal, a fantasic result.

The other Kiwi in the race, Fraser Gough, also had a good ride to finish 14th.

Oram on the podium ©Copenhagen2011

Oram rides for PureBlack Racing's development team, and on that team's website he named two key goals for the year - to improve on his previous result as Best Young Rider in the Tour de l'Abitibi and the "ultimate goal of a top 10 placing at the Worlds."

In July he won the opening stage of that Canadian tour before going on to win the overall General Classification, and with today's result the Aucklander can certainly say he has achieved his goals.

There will not be too much celebrating yet though as Oram is in action again later in the week when he will contest the road race with four other Kiwis.

Hopefully the peloton will not mark him too heavily after today's top performance.

"We have all ridden together a lot for New Zealand and we all know each other well. I think we can do really well here," he said of the road race.

UCI World Road Championships

• Road race results from the UCI Road World Championships
• New World Road Champion Mark Cavendish
• Kiwis Worlds foiled by crash
• Jack Bauer ready for Worlds challenge
• Linda Villumsen races to plan
• Crashes hold junior Kiwis back
• Disappointment for U23 Kiwi men
• Junior Kiwis in the action, not just the good action
• Start lists for the road race events
• Kiwi family has two riders to cheer at the Worlds
• All time trial results
• Tony Martin delivers a World Champion performance
• Big images of the Kiwis in action
• Jack Bauer happy with Top 20 performance
• UCI name Jesse Sergent as one of the favourites
• Silver success for Linda Villumsen
• Stunning silver medal for James Oram
• Junior Kiwis benefit from World Champs merger
• Two Kiwis 6th best TT times in the World
• Aussies steal all the action on Day 1 
• Women's elite TT start list
• NZ team and race schedule