(Kyle Sheldon is a cycling devotee and freelance journalist)

At 10:00am yesterday the first competitor left the starting stalls as racing officially began at the 2010 UCI World Cycling Championships in Geelong.

That honour fell to Mexican Frayre Moctezuma Eder, who at 18, is the youngest competitor at this year's Championships.

The first event was the under-23 time trial for men only, with all local eyes firmly planted on Luke Durbridge (pictured far left) of Western Australia and Rohan Dennis of South Australia.

Durbridge, originally regarded as a track specialist, was expected to struggle on a grueling 31.6km course covering eight major hills in windy conditions on the streets of Geelong.

Durbridge, the seventh rider out of the stalls, set a cracking pace, recording a time of 20:49.57 for the first of two laps of a 15.8km circuit. Durbridge's lap time would remain the fastest of all the 41 competitors, and by a margin of some 27 seconds.

Durbridge would keep this momentum going into the second lap to record a time of 42:52.19, leaving him in the gold medal position of finished competitors. Durbridge took his position in the leader's hot seat on the presentation podium as he agonised over what was to be an extremely competitive time.

So competitive was Durbridge's time was that he would hold this position for the next three hours as the remaining competitors slowly started to fall by the wayside.

American Taylor Phinney came to the Championships with a large reputation to uphold, being the son of 1984 Olympic Champion Connie Carpenter and US professional cycling star Davis Phinney, and fresh from an impressive win in the US professional time trial, taking the title away from Tour de France regular David Zabriskie for the first time since 2006.

After the first lap Phinney trailed the Australian Durbridge by 4 seconds at the final checkpoint, still facing a long drag up the steep Moorabool Street hill before the finish line.

With the finish line in sight, Phinney powered on the cranks to record a time of 42:50.29 to take gold from Durbridge. The winning margin of 1.9 seconds was the smallest in the under-23 time trial since fellow Australian Michael Rogers finished runner-up to Spaniard Iván Gutiérrez in Verona, Italy in 1999.

German Marcel Kittel collected the bronze medal with Australia's only other competitor in the race Rohan Dennis finishing fourth.

Durbridge, just 19 years old, is the youngest medalist in the time trial at the World Championships, eclipsing the record of Swiss ace Fabian Cancellara who won silver at Plouay, France in 2000.

"I know I went really hard in the first lap, but when I was 17 seconds faster than Taylor at the halfway point, I thought this could be medal here and started to get really excited," Durbridge said after the event.

"When he came in 1.9 (seconds) faster, I was disappointed, but to hold on for second, it is unbelievable."

Phinney has announced he will be riding for the Swiss-based BMC Racing Team on the ProTour next year, joining fellow world champions Cadel Evans, Alessandro Ballan and his idol and fellow American George Hincapie.