Ellen Van Dijk lived up to her status as massive favourite on today in today's world championships time trial when she beat New Zealander Linda Villumsen and American Carmen Small into the minor places. A flat course that played to her strengths and a meticulous preparation of her Worlds campaign made her double her tally of titles following Sunday's team time trial win.

Among her teammates, Ellen Van Dijk is known as "The Animal" for her big power and fast pace. After a dominant ride in the world time trial championships, the Dutchman now has a rainbow jersey to justify her nickname.

On the pancake flat course in Florence, Van Dijk was like a duck to water and it was no wonder that he had been proclaimed the biggest favourite in the individual races at the world championships. Right from the beginning, she put time into her rivals and the outcome was never in doubt.

"I am super happy," she said at the post-race press conference. "It is really hard to describe how I feel right now. I'm so excited because I dreamed so long of this one and the pressure really got high in the last couple of days for me. To finish it off is just great."

At the first time check, Van Dijk was 20 seconds ahead of 2nd placed Linda Villumsen. At the 2nd one, she had extended her lead to 25 seconds but when she crossed the line, she had lost 1 second of her lead.

She admitted to have been a bit too excited in the first half of the race.

"My intention was to go really fast today but I wanted to keep it a little bit longer to be honest," she said. "I think I was a little bit overexcited and started maybe a bit too fast. I maintained the difference so it is all okay."

With the course playing to her strength, Van Dijk long knew that she had a good chance of taking a maiden world title in the individual discipline. Last year she finished 5th on a hilly course in Limburg and she couldn't allow herself to miss this great opportunity. Hence, she prepared the race meticulously.

"I really practiced the corners a lot," she said. "I went here in the beginning of August together with the national coach. We did a little recon camp. We went here for two days and rode the course at 5am in the morning two days in a row. I mean: it is really hard to practice the course here in Florence in the middle of the city so we went in the morning because then there was less traffic. Still it almost cost me my life. We made a video of it and I watched that video 10 million times."

Van Dijk has always been known for her time trialing skills but has also excelled in sprints. In recent years, she has made a deliberate choice to develop into a pure specialist.

I made a bit of a transition but I've always been a bit of a time trialist," she said. "It cost me a little bit of my sprint to really focus on the time trial but I better think you should really focus on doing one thing good instead of doing everything a little bit."

"I really made the transition with my trainer Andreas Lang. He has coached me for three years. He helped me a lot to really work on my time trial skills and we did special training for it. That may have cost me a bit of my sprint but this is very good for me. I can win stage races now because I have good time trial skills. I can ride uphill quite a bit so that makes you allround."

The future of women's cycling has been heavily debated, especially in relation to the UCI presidential campaign. At this year's Worlds, the women only raced 22km, the same distance as the junior men.

Asked whether it was time for the women to race a bit longer, Van Dijk wasn't too convinced that it would change the outcome.

"The time trial was quite short compared to other years," she said. "It doesn't matter that much. I think it's better if it's a little bit longer. It's more representative but I don't think it will really change the results."

With today's win, Van Dijk now has two 2013 world titles following her team time trial victory. On Saturday, she will line up in the road race where she is expected to play a support role for defending champion Marianne Vos.