Christchurch rider capped off a remarkable few months with a silver medal in the men’s under-23 time trial at the UCI Road Cycling World Championships in Rwanda today.
The 21-year-old surprised himself, clocking 39:28.29 for the 31km distance in Kigali, to finish 1:03 behind winner Jakob Soderqvist of Sweden, in his first world championship.
Pringle, who won the under-23 time trial at the national championships this year, only picked up a professional contract in April to join the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe development team.
It has been a whirlwind few months for the young kiwi who has been elevated to the WorldTour team on several occasions, winning the youth classification at the Sibiu Tour and riding in the Tour de Wallonie, Czech Tour and some 1.Pro one-day races.
He had no preconceived ideas on his chances in Rwanda.
"I just went as hard as I could and then tried to recover. And then I was pretty dead by those cobbles, they were so much harder in person, but it was really fun,” said Pringle after only his second UCI time trial.
"It really means a lot," he said. "I really wasn't expecting it, to be honest,” he said of his effort averaging 47.4kph over a testing course.
At this stage he has not secured a fulltime ride with his team for next season, as he moves out of the under-23 category.
"I've got no idea what it means for the future, but I'll just live in the moment, I think," he said. "It feels awesome."
The last kiwi to secure a men’s under-23 time trial world championships podium was Waikato’s Peter Latham in 2005 in Madrid.
