Taiwan KOM: Ben Dyball smashes Vincenzo Nibali's course record

The course record for the Taiwan KOM Challenge has been smashed, with Benjamin Dyball dethroning none other than Vincenzo Nibali after triumphing atop the 86.5km climb on Friday.

The Taiwan KOM Challenge is one of the most extreme hill climbs you’ll ever find, running from sea level in the coastal town of Qixingtan all the way up to 3,275 metres of altitude atop Mount Hehuan. GCN’s Ollie Bridgewood was among the field of competitors, and we’ll have a video on his effort and the event next month.

The full route measures 105km but the timing start line comes after 18.5km, giving the riders a warm-up before they begin the mammoth 86.5km climb. After a relatively gentle start, it ratchets up and up, with a 4km descent only providing false relief ahead of a vicious final 15km.

Dyball, who rode for NTT Pro Cycling in 2020 but has since plied his trade on the Asian Tour with Japanese teams – now Victoire Hiroshima – reached the top in a time of three hours, 16 minutes, and nine seconds. That was a full three minutes and 45 seconds faster than Nibali’s record, which had stood since 2017, shortly after the Italian, a winner of all three Grand Tours, had taken his second Il Lombardia title.

Dyball had twice previously finished runner-up at the event, and the 34-year-old Australian knocked a huge 10 minutes out of his previous best time from 2018.

© Taiwan KOM Challenge

The profile of the Taiwan KOM Challenge

Second place on Friday went to WorldTour pro David Peña in a time of 3:20:30, who lined up alongside his Jayco-AlUla teammate Simon Yates, fourth overall in this year’s Tour de France but out of the top five here. Third place went to Japanese rider Kaneko Sohei from the Kizuna Cycling Team with 3:23:02.

In the women’s race, Shoko Dashiki (O-ence) was crowned queen of the mountain, reaching the top in a time of 4:05:26, more than 11 minutes up on fellow Japanese rider Tsubasa Makisa (Kizuna Cycling Team).

“Today was really really hard – harder than I expected,” said Peña. “I was thinking the last hour and a half to start pushing but it was maybe two and a half hours at a really high pace.

“At over 2,000m it was fog, we couldn’t see the road too good, but it was ok. It was really hard in the last 10km, steep, hard, and also the altitude. The last kilometres each time were harder.”

Yates added: “It was a hard race today, I’ll tell you that, especially just after the off-season. All good fun. Me and David tried to give it our best but got beat by some of the other guys, but that’s how it goes. I really enjoyed the challenge and I’m sure I’ll be back another year.”

Want to know how Ollie got on? We’ll have a video covering his ride and the spectacular Taiwan KOM Challenge coming soon on GCN. In the meantime, you can watch how Si Richardson got on when he tackled the event alongside Matt Stephens in 2017.