Conor White produced a remarkable ride to win a bronze medal in the cycling time-trial in Chile on Sunday.

In an emotional finish, White was in silver-medal position behind Colombian Walter Vargas upon crossing the line but with five riders, including the reigning Olympic road race champion Richard Carapaz, out on the course, the rider was left watching a mobile phone after the Ecuadorean star relegated him to bronze.

An agonising two-minute wait for Venezuelan Orlis Alberto Aular to finish then followed and when he failed to beat White’s time, a beaming Bermudian smile lit up the small town of Isla de Maipo.

The medal is only Bermuda’s tenth at the Pan Am Games and the first since Flora Duffy won bronze in Toronto in 2015 and White was thrilled to be joining such an illustrious name on Bermuda’s roll of honour.

“I’m really, really happy,” he said. “I knew I could potentially get a medal and I’m very happy to have got it.

“I knew on the way around that I was fast and when I went past a few people on the second lap, it felt so good.

“When I passed Kaden the second time, I knew I was ahead of him and I caught the Panama guy halfway through the first lap. I could see the Chilean guy ahead of me and if he had been two minutes ahead, I wouldn’t have seen him so I knew I was on a good day.”

White has taken his form to a different level this year and he harboured hopes of a major medal after seeing the course layout.

“I think this whole year has been amazing,” White said.

“Coming third at CAC [Central American and Caribbean] Games and winning at the Caribbean Championships, that gave me so much confidence coming into this and I knew if I had the power I could have a good day, and this was the perfect course for me.

“I knew from when I first saw the profile and the open roads, flat and straight. I did a couple of race-pace efforts yesterday and even without my aerodynamic equipment I was going very fast, so I knew I’d have a pretty fast TT. I also use this software, which is pretty accurate, and I put the data into it and it spat out I would do 49.5km/h and I did 49.4.”

Whte has been competing for Bermuda for some time and is happy that his years of lung-busting efforts have paid off.

“It’s all for something and to put all that work in and get a result like this is amazing.

“I guess this started years ago. In my first Caribbean Championships I finished tenth in the time-trial and it wasn’t a crazy strong field. Each year I’ve been getting more and more comfortable on the bike and faster.

“This year has been amazing. I’ve gone from 46, 47, 48 kilometres per hour to 50. At that speed the power to go that much faster is exponential. I’ve been tweaking a few things and I have got some really good equipment from my team.”

White has put himself in the shop window with this win and there may be a few teams in another continent taking a look at the tall cyclist.

“I’m always open to my offers,” White said. “I’m really happy with the team I’ve got now but I think the only way I’d go somewhere else would be a bigger team in Europe. I feel like now if I go back to this team I will have a bit more freedom to do more time-trials.”

Bermuda’s other representative Kaden Hopkins finished a fine fifth, about 30 seconds away from the medals, and despite the competition between the team-mates he was thrilled for his friend.

“I’m super proud of him,” Hopkins said. “The two of us for the last couple of years, it doesn’t matter which TT we go to we’re always pretty close.

“We are rivals but we are also team-mates. We come to these races and it’s an individual event but we always want each other to do well. We never wish a bad day upon the other guy. I’m really happy for him and he put in an amazing ride.”

Despite missing out on a medal, Hopkins left nothing out on the course and was happy with his performance.

“I wouldn’t say it was the ride of my life but it’s been a really long season,” he said.

“I think with a bit more focused preparation I may have been a bit closer but overall I’m happy with it. It’s the end of the season and I had a strong day. I didn’t crack at any point.

“I think I definitely made some mistakes not in terms of pacing but in terms of line choice and when I was trying to empty everything with about 2K to go I nearly went off the road through one of the chicanes.”