Tom Dumoulin of the Netherlands won the gold medal in the individual time trial at the Road Cycling World Championships on Wednesday.
Slovenia's Primoz Roglic took silver and Briton Chris Froome claimed the bronze medal.
Irishman Nicholas Roche finished 12th in Bergen, Norway. The 31km time trial included a summit finish for the first time at the World Championships, which suited the powerful BMC rider.
Speaking after the race Roche declared himself happy with his performance.
"I left it all out on the road, and I’m happy enough with how today went," he said.
"I would have liked to break into the top ten, symbolically, but tenth, twelfth, it’s much the same."
The focus for all the riders now moves to the road races, with U23 men first to test the circuit on Friday.
All the road races will include the same 17.9km circuit in Bergen, and Roche is looking forward to competing again on Sunday.
"The road race is very open, and it always a different race.
"I’m going into this year’s race with a different mindset. I’m going to take it kilometre by kilometre and see how it goes."
There will be no racing in Bergen tomorrow, but on Friday five Irish riders will be competing in the 191km men’s U23 Road Race: Mark Downey, Daire Feely, Darragh O’Mahony, Adam Stenson and Matthew Teggart.
The World Road Championships run from the 17-24 September, during which 18 Irish riders compete across eight events.
1 Tom Dumoulin (Netherlands) 44:41.00" 2 Primoz Roglic (Slovenia) +57.79" 3 Chris Froome (BGreat Britain) +1:21.25" 4 Nelson Oliveira (Portugal) +1:28.52" 5 Vasil Kiryienka (Belarus) +1:28.75"
12 Nicolas Roche (Ireland) +1:53.54"
