Silver medal for Anna Henderson in the women's time trial at the Olympic Games in Paris

Anna Henderson won silver for Great Britain in the women's time trial at the Paris Olympic Games, beating third-placed American Chloe Dygert by less than a second.

In wet, treacherous conditions that challenged several riders, Henderson clocked a time of 41 minutes and 10.7 seconds on the 32.4-kilometer course through central Paris, one minute and 31 seconds behind Australia's Grace Brown, whose ride won the gold medal.

Dygert was among those who went down and that proved critical as she lost her 15-second lead over Henderson at the first intermediate control and finished nine-tenths of a second slower than the Briton's time.

The rain that marred Friday's opening ceremony continued well into Saturday, leaving adverse conditions on a route that began at the Esplanade des Invalides, then headed east and finally returned to the Pont Alexandre III in front of the Grand Palais.

Several riders crashed. American Taylor Knibb hit the ground three times. Even her mechanic fell when he tried to give her a new bike. Henderson, however, managed to keep everything neat and tidy and achieved the most remarkable result of her career so far.

The two-time British time trial champion finished fourth at last year's World Championships and then took silver at the European Championships.

Both times she was only one or two seconds behind Christina Schweinberger – who snatched bronze from her in Glasgow but had to settle for third place in Drenthe. In Paris, however, the Austrian was far behind and ended up in tenth place.

Born in Hemel Hempstead, Henderson was a national junior slalom champion and once dreamed of competing in the Winter Olympics, but her Summer Games debut is considered a major success.