The American challenge was led by Shawn Morelli, who completed the 15.5 kilometres course in 34min 29.11sec to take the women’s C4 title, despite having to ride her road bike due to a crack being discovered in her time trial bike the night before.

“I just tried to refocus myself after I was told that I wasn’t going to have my time trial bike,” the 39-year-old said.

“I did my normal warmup and thought about all of the training and preparation that I’ve done all year.

“It doesn’t matter what bike I ride; I’m strong, I just laid it out there, decided I was going to let it go and race the bike that I had and I wanted to win.”

Morelli finished 44 seconds clear of second place Alexandra Green of Australia and her team-mate Jamie Whitmore enjoyed a similar level of domination in the C3 event, finishing more than a minute clear of her nearest rival to take gold in 23:13.26.

Fellow American Allison Jones was denied gold in the women’s C2 race as her time of 25:10.89 was not enough to rival Sini Zeng, the Chinese rider securing gold in 24:25.69.

Zeng’s victory followed on from her compatriot Jieli Li’s earlier success in the C1 classification, as she topped the podium after completing the course in a time of 29:37.80.

Having not yet appeared on the Para-cycling Road World Cup circuit this year due to competing in able-bodied races, Dame Sarah began her World Championship campaign in style as the 11-time Paralympic gold medallist retained her C5 title.

She finished over two minutes clear of Poland’s Anna Harkowska to secure the 21st world title of her career in 30:52.36.

Dame Sarah believes her performance shows she is on course for further Paralympic success at Rio 2016.

“The year before Rio, to be putting time into your competitors is always good,” she said.

“That obviously shows that the training and preparation has gone well, hopefully I’ll be able to retain this title in Rio next year.”

In the remaining women’s time trial race,  Canada’s Shelley Gautier and Australia’s Carol Cooke secured victories in the T1 and T2 classifications.

Poland’s Iwona Podkoscielna and Aleksandra Wnuczek earned gold medals in the tandem event by the narrowest of margins, finishing in 52:05.61, 0.03 seconds ahead of New Zealand's Emma Foy and Laura Thompson.

A Polish tandem double was secured as Michal Ladosz and guide Marcin Polak claimed gold in the men’s race with their time of 43:34.44, enough to see off the challenge of Spain’s Noel Martin Infante and Carlos Gonzalez Garcia, second in 44.45.44.

Hans-Peter Durst was one of two German gold medallist in the men’s events, as the 57-year-old posted a time of 25:00.82 to claim the T2 title ahead of Italy’s Girogio Farroni, who although claiming silver was well adrift of the winner having completed the course in 26:20.60.

His triumph was followed by Michael Teuber’s in the C1 time trial as he held off the challenge of Spain’s Juan Jose Mendez and Italy’s Giancarlo Masini to take gold in 32:32.60.

France’s Quentin Aubague was another convincing winner in the Swiss city, finishing more than a minute clear of his rivals in the T1 event, crossing the line in 20:15.

Russia’s Arslan Gilmutadinov enjoyed a 40 second winning margin over China’s Guihua Liang in the C2 event, finishing in 31:08.44.

The final golds of the day were claimed by Ireland’s Eoghan Clifford, whose time of 48:53.60 was enough to take the C3 event.

Australia’s Kyle Bridgwood and Ukraine’s Yehor Dementyev posted times of 46:28.32 and 45:25.45 respectively to win the C4 and C5 titles.

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