Tadej Pogačar won a second rainbow jersey in Kigali on Sunday, the Slovenian riding the final 66km alone.
The race was decided on an extra loop which took the peloton off the main Kigali circuit and over two brutal climbs, Mont Kigali and the Mur de Kigali, which topped out more than 100km from the line.
It was here that Pogačar made his move, taking Isaac Del Toro (Mexico) with him while a 13 man group behind were unable to get on terms.
Once the pair were back on the Kigali city circuit used for all the road races, Del Toro was dropped and eventually caught and passed by a chasing group, while Pogačar forged on alone, building an insurmountable lead.
With Del Toro well and truly out of contention a three man group was unable to close the gap, despite working well together. In the end, on the penultimate ascent of the Côte de Kigali Golf, Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) attacked, riding the final 20km alone to take second place finishing 1.28 behind his rival.
On the final lap Ben Healey (Ireland) attacked is fellow escapee, Mattias Skjelmose (Denmark), the Irishman eventually rounding off the peloton in third place.
Pogačar becomes the first man to win both the Tour de France and world road race titles in two successive years, cementing his position as one of the best cyclists to ever race.
How it happened
The final event of this year’s World Championships took the Elite Men on a 267.5km route with almost 6,000m of climbing, including 15 laps of the 15.1km Kigali used in all the previous road races. The men’s event, though, was the only one of the week to leave that circuit, a mid-race 42.5km loop to the west of Rwanda’s capital tackling three new climbs, including Mont Kigali and the fearsome Mur de Kigali.
While that added variety, distance and climbing to the day, the lap itself was testing enough, with barely a metre of flat road and two challenging climbs, the Côte de Kigali Golf and the Côte de Kimihurura, the championships’ signature cobbled climb.
Attacks came from the gun with Red Walters (Grenada) immediately getting a gap, before being joined half a lap later by a group representing some of the world’s strongest nations who dropped Walters as quickly as he had initially escaped.
Marius Mayrhofer (Germany), Anders Foldanger (Denmark), Menno Huising (Netherlands), Ivo Oliveira (Portugal) and Fabio Christen (Switzerland) were soon joined by Julian Bernard (France), the group building a lead of two minutes on the opening lap.
France disrupted the second lap, first with Julian Alaphilippe attacking, then Julien Bernard bridging to the front group. This move saw the leaders’ advantage brought back to one minute and while the peloton eventually re-formed, it allowed Raúl García Pierna (Spain) to set off in pursuit, eventually joining the breakaway.
The chaos of the opening laps couldn’t carry on, and soon the Slovenian and Belgian teams of pre-race favourites, Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel restored order and the leaders’ advantage was restored.
After a crash saw British rider, Bjorn Koerdt, Marc Soler (Spain) and one of Evenepoel’s key lieutenants, Ilan Van Wilder abandon, the race settled into a rhythm. By the end of the fourth lap the Belgians and Slovenians had allowed the peloton’s deficit to grow to 3.10 though that was brought back to 2:30 where it stayed.
However, by the time the ninth lap was completed and the race was heading out for the new lap, the gap was down to 1.35, with one of Isaac Del Toro’s Mexican team mates replacing the entire Slovenian team at the front.
On the Côte de Péage the breakaway split, only Foldanger, Bernard and Oliveira remaining, while behind the dynamic in the bunch changed, the favourites joining their teams at the front of the bunch, but allowing the three remaining leaders to extend their lead once again.
While the breakaway took two minutes over the Côte de Péage, on Mont Kigali Bernard was alone, his lead dropping fast. On the steepest slopes, just short of the top Pogačar made his move, catching Bernard just before the top, with only Juan Ayuso (Spain) for company, Del Toro catching them on the descent. On the cobbled, brutally steep Mur de Kigali, Ayuso was dropped, as the chasing group fell back to more than 30 seconds.
When Pogačar and Del Toro crossed the finish line with 90.6km to go their lead was 44 seconds on a significant sized peloton. However, rather than riding together, that group began attacking in ones and twos, taking half a lap for any kind of organised chase to form, Belgium taking responsibility with Quinten Hermans and Cian Uijtdebroeks.
On the next ascent of the cobbled Côte de Kiimihurura Evenepoel stopped and waited for a second bike change of the lap. At the front though, all was not good, with Del Toro either suffering some sort of mechanical or running out of energy, and though he managed to stay with Pogačar, until the end of the lap, he was dropped next time round.
From the peloton Ben Healey (Ireland) finally made one of the moves work, taking Mikkel Honoré (Denmark) and Pavel Sivakov (France) with him, the three working well together, briefly closing the gap to within 35 seconds.
However, with their deficit approaching one minute, the Healey group was caught, though the Irishman managed to infiltrate a new chase with Evenepoel, Tom Pidcock (Great Britain), Mattias Skjelmose (Denmark) and Jai Hindley (Australia). This group also cooperated well, but entered the final four laps with one minute behind Pogačar, a deficit they were unable to close.
A lap later not only had the group lost Pidcock and Hindley, they’d also lost another eight seconds and the race was all but won ahead of them. Though Evenepoel attacked on the penultimate lap, by then second place was all he had to ride for.
RESULTS
ROAD WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS, ELITE MEN, KIGALI > KIGALI (267.5KM)
1. Tadej Pogačar, Slovenia, in 6:21:20
2. Remco Evenepoel, Belgium, +1:28
3. Ben Healy, Ireland, +2:16
4. Mattias Skjelmose, Denmark, +2:53
5. Toms Skujņš, Latvia, +6:41
6. Giulio Ciccone, Italy, +6:47
7. Isaac Del Toro, Mexico,
8. Juan Ayuso, Spain, at same time
9. Afonso Eulálio, Portugal, +7:06
10. Tom Pidcock, Great Britain, +9:05
