Tadej Pogačar Wins World Championship in Spectacular Solo Breakaway

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Tadej Pogačar wrote another page of cycling history Sunday to win the 2024 UCI road cycling world championships with a spectacular solo attack.

The Slovenian sensation launched the race-winning move with 100km to go, and attacked again with 50km to go to power solo all the way to the line.

In his wake, pre-race favorites Remco Evenepoel and Mathieu van der Poel couldn’t immediately answer to set up a thrilling tug-of-war for the spoils.

“I cannot believe what just happened. After this kind of season, I put a lot of pressure on myself for today,” Pogačar said at the line. “I had pressure from myself, from the team. We came here for victory.”

Ben O’Connor kicked to silver for Australia with a late-race attack out of the elite chase group. Van der Poel defended his 2023 world title with class to sprint to bronze.

Things got tense on the bell lap, but Pogačar had enough in the tank to hang on to win to complete the “Triple Crown,” placing him alongside legends Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche in elite men’s racing.

After winning the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France this summer, Pogačar’s triumph at the world championships adds a new chapter to his near-perfect 2024 season.

“After many years fighting for the Tour de France and other races, I never had the world championship as a clear goal,” Pogačar said. “This year after a perfect season it was a really big goal to win the world championships. I can’t believe it happened. I have to thank all the team. Without them it would be impossible.”

With everyone on their collective knees, Pogačar made the final circuit a personal victory lap for one of the most spectacular worlds performances since, well, Merckx.

Quinn Simmons led home Team USA with a solid ninth in his best worlds performance since winning the junior world title in 2019.

An exploit in the making

The elite men’s road race was the longest and toughest of this year’s world championships program, running 273.9km and taking in a staggering 4291 vertical meters of climbing.

The usual aggressive start took place and with more than 230km remaining Tobais Foss (Norway), Silvan Dillier (Switzerland), Rui Oliveira (Portugal), Simon Geschke (Germany), Piotr Pękala (Poland) and Luc Wirtgen (Luxembourg) set about opening a lead of more than five minutes.

Julian Alaphilippe (France) crashed out of the race soon afterwards, with Pello Bilbao (Spain) also injured but able to continue.

Tadej Pogačar’s Slovenia team was doing much of the riding, with Victor Campenaerts (Belgium) then taking over and doing a very long stint at the front to whittle down that advantage.

Vuelta a España breakthrough rider Pablo Castrillo attacked with over 130km to go. While Pogačar looked very composed, remaining in the saddle on the steep gradients, two of his Slovenian teammates slipped backwards, reducing his support.

This increase in momentum saw the peloton break up into two groups, setting things up for a dangerous attack.

Pogačar stuns with early move

Jay Vine (Australia) leaped clear very soon afterwards, drawing other strong riders clear.

Laurens De Plus (Belgium), Stevie Williams (Great Britain), Pavel Sivakov (France), Mattia Cattaneo (Italy), Magnus Cort (Norway), Jan Tratnik (Slovenia), Kevin Vermaerke (USA), Florian Lipowitz (Germany) and Johannes Staune-Mittet (Norway) joined forces with the Australian, making for a high octane chase.

Together they caught the break with just under four laps to go, 105km from the finish. The bunch was looking hyper-focused, though, and reduced the gap thanks mainly to the efforts of Domen Novak (Slovenia).

Soon afterwards Quinn Simmons (USA) launched a big move. Romain Gregoire (France) followed but Primož Roglič (Slovena) dragged the group back up to them once again.

Pogačar then stunned and surged with over 100km remaining, putting the hammer down on the steepest part of the second climb. Simmons and Andrea Bagioli (Italy) went with him, but Simmons cracked soon afterwards.

Bagioli would also succumb several minutes later, leaving the Slovenian team leader alone and fully committed despite there being over two hours remaining in the race.

Teammate Tratnik dropped back from the break to help and together they caught the break with 91km remaining. The Belgium-led peloton was frantically chasing behind but was a full 1:02 back then, and in panic mode.

Pogačar was searching for every second and distanced the other riders with a skilled descent. He waited for them on the flat roads afterwards, inhaling a gel, then Tratnik took over again and brought them though the finish line for the start of three laps to go.

His energy was fizzling out and once he cracked on the climb Pogačar attacked hard. He was initially joined by Sivakov, dropped him close to the summit, but then waited for him afterwards.

Evenepoel and Van der Poel trapped in the bunch

The big guns realised the race was going away from them and started to fire behind. A surge by Evenepoel was marked by Van der Poel, while a move by Healy went nowhere. A lot of stop/go racing followed and the gap fluctuated up and down around the 40 second mark.

Pogačar and Sivakov are UAE teammates for the rest of the year and fully committed together. With 59km left Healy and Oscar Onley (Great Britain) began a long chase, joined soon afterwards by an impressive Skujinš.

They were 40 seconds back with two laps to go, while Van der Poel, Vermaerke, Frederik Wandahl (Denmark) and Tobias Halland Johannessen (Norway) were at 52 seconds.

A larger group containing Evenepoel, Jorgenson, Simmons, Mads Pedersen (Denmark), David Gaudu (France), Marc Hirschi (Switzerland) and others were ten seconds further back.

Evenepoel was trying to bridge to the Van der Poel group and was left waving his arm in frustration when the others in his group covered his surges rather than committing to the chase.

Out front, Sivakov was dropped on the climb with just under 52km to go. Pogačar went over the top 46 seconds ahead of the Healy group and 1:01 ahead of Van der Poel, who set off solo in pursuit.

He collected Onley but the latter was drained after his time out front and unable to work with him. The Evenepoel group mopped them up soon afterwards.

Pogačar missed the first of two bottles in the feed zone and, for the first time, looked under stress.

The suspense rises

The big question was if Pogačar had gone to early, and if he would run out of fuel, as happened on stage 11 of the Tour de France.

He had been calling for his team car for several kilometers but it finally was allowed through. He took a bottle and two gels, got the time gaps he was looking for, then continued on.

The timegaps remained considerable. With 39km left he had 56 seconds over Healy and Skujinš and 1:17 on the Evenpoel/Van der Poel group. By the start of the final lap the gaps had increased slightly to 1:00 and 1:27, but a difficult 17km remained.

And while the Giro/Tour winner looked solid on the early climb, riding smoothly in the saddle all the way up, his advantage did constrict on the hill. Skujinš briefly dropped Healy there, while Hirschi attacked the larger chase group to go solo.

Things were breaking up behind. Evenepoel, Van der Poel, Simmons, O’Connor, Romain Bardet and David Gaudu (France), Bauke Mollema (Netherlands), Enric Mas (Spain) and Mads Pedersen (Denmark) moved clear of the rest.

With 20.1km left they were 1:08 behind Pogačar, and 20 back from Skujinš and Healy. Hirschi was trapped in no man’s land and joined by Mas, while Evenepoel, Van der Poel and O’Connor clipped away from the rest. The chasers all came together with 16.5km left, and were 42 seconds back very soon afterwards.

It was getting tense out front. Pogačar looked at times to be weakening but continued driving onwards, counting down the kilometers. And while the stop/go racing behind saw things look doubtful for him at times, attacks by Van der Poel, Hirschi, Skujinš and others were hauled back rather than persisting.

History is made

Hirschi tried one more on a climb inside 6km to go. His attack seemed decisive but once again things came back together.

The same happened when Healy put in two bursts, separated by another attempt by Skuijnš.

The staccato-style racing was a boost for Pogačar, who continued his consistent pace. He had looked under pressure at times but rose to the occasion, soloing in to the most impressive win of his career and making all comparisons with Eddy Merckx valid.

Ben O’Connor attacked in the finale to grab a superb second, while Van der Poel nabbed bronze ahead of Skujinš and Evenepoel.