Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogačar became the world champion in the race with a mass start in Zurich. He became the third rider in history to win the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the world championship in one year. The Australian Ben O’Connor won the silver, while the defending champion from the Netherlands, Mathieu van der Poel, won the bronze. Czech representative Mathias Vacek took 20th place.
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Zurich
17:44 29. 9. 2024 (Updated: 18:49 29/09/2024)
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Tadej Pogačar celebrates his victory at the road cycling world championship | Photo: Denis Balibouse | Source: Reuters
The newly twenty-six-year-old Pogačar performed fantastically during the nearly six-and-a-half-hour ride. He spent the last hundred kilometers of the 274-kilometer race on the breakaway, half of which he drove completely alone in the lead. He won by 34 seconds ahead of O’Connor. After last year’s bronze, he imitated a feat that only the Belgian Eddy Merckx (1974) and the Irishman Stephen Roche (1987) had managed before him.
“I can’t believe what happened here today. In the season I’ve had, I really put a lot of pressure on myself for this race. And I developed it on myself. I was here with the whole team to win. I can hardly believe now that I succeeded,” said Pogačar at the finish line.
Vacek was in the game for a medal for a long time. The 22-year-old rider of the elite Lidl-Trek team controlled the situation, but in the last kilometers he was running out of strength. He lost almost four minutes to Pogačar, he was two minutes and 54 seconds away from the bronze.
A decisive start
Favored Pogačar attacked almost exactly one hundred kilometers before the finish line and thanks to the help of compatriot Jan Tratnik, who was waiting for him, he only needed a moment to reach the leading group. The medal aspirants in the peloton drew attention and especially the Belgian riders significantly increased the pace.
But Pogačar, who won the Tour for the third time in his career after 2020 and 2021 and never finished worse than third in seven starts at Grand Tours, was unstoppable on Sunday. He and the Frenchman Pavel Sivakov soon broke away from the others and set off to escape.
A group of pursuers formed behind them with all the big names, including Vacek. Pogačar broke away 50 kilometers before the finish line, the Irishman Ben Healy and the Latvian Toms Skujinš were the closest to him, only a short distance behind them were the main aces, and Vacek still held his position well.
“I certainly didn’t plan to attack this early, but the race was on and there was a very dangerous group of refugees ahead. It may have seemed stupid on my part at the beginning, but then Jan Tratnik helped me a lot, to whom – as well as the entire team – I owe a lot of thanks. Then it was just a matter of continuing to believe that I can crown this great season with a victory,” said Pogačar, who missed the Olympic Games.
Pogačar entered the last circuit in Zurich with a length of 27 kilometers with a one-minute lead and was able to hold it until the last meters. Nine kilometers before the finish, Van der Poel attacked, but in the end he won bronze behind O’Connor in a sprint just ahead of Skujinš. Belgian Olympic doubles winner Remco Evenepoel took fifth place.
Of the Czech quartet at the start, only Vacek finished the race. Michael Boroš, Michal Schlegel and Jakub Otruba did not complete it. The Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe did not cover even a quarter of Sunday’s portion of kilometers. The two-time world champion from 2020 and 2021 was forced to withdraw with a dislocated shoulder after the fall.
Results of the World Road Cycling Championships in Zurich – mass start race:
Elite men (273.9 km): 1. Pogačar (Slovin.) 6:27:30, 2. O’Connor (Austr.) -34, 3. Van der Poel (Niz.), 4. Skujinš (Lot.), 5. Evenepoel (Belgium.) , 6. Hirschi (Switzerland) všichni -58, 7. Healy (Irish) -1:00, 8. Mas (Sp.) -1:01, 9. Simmons (USA), 10. Bardet (French) oba -2:18, …20. M. Vacek -3:52, Boroš, Otruba, Schlegel (all CR) did not finish.
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