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Evenepoel, Van der Poel stunned in worlds


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It’s hard to surprise ice man Mathieu van der Poel in a bike race, but Tadej Pogačar’s audacious 100km attack to win the 2024 UCI road cycling world championships in Zürich left the Dutch superstar in awe.

Pogačar lived up to his aggressive racing style Sunday and launched a mind-bending attack with four laps to go, a move Van der Poel at first considered a tactical blunder.

The Dutchman, along with everyone else, were soon eating their words.

“I thought he was throwing away a world champion’s jersey,” Van der Poel said. “It’s not the smartest move, but apparently for him it is. When Belgium started chasing with the entire team, I thought he threw it away, but he proved he was so strong.”

An unstoppable Pogačar jumped across to an early break with 100km to go, surprising many inside the peloton with such a daredevil, unconventional attack even by his standards.

Of course, Pogačar’s been lighting up European roads all season long.

Sunday was no different.

‘I thought it was quite a stupid move’

Van der Poel
Pogačar and Van der Poel celebrate the final podium. (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)

Belgium dutifully organized a chase for Remco Evenepoel, but then Pogačar countered with another solo bomb with 50km to go to add fuel to the growing bonfire.

“I thought it was quite a stupid move, to be honest. But he proved us wrong,” said Van der Poel, who sprinted to bronze behind Ben O’Connor’s silver. “Why? Because he was the strongest.”

Van der Poel and the other “bigs” waited patiently to make their major accelerations for the final lap when Pogačar’s lead dangled at 1 minute at the bell.

Evenepoel joined an elite chase group with Van der Poel packing some huge watts, and even clawed Pogačar back to within 40 seconds with 15km to go.

But the damage was done and Pogačar swept down the final descent toward Lake Zurich and the home stretch with enough of a gap to win the stripes. With it he joins Eddy Merckx, Stephen Roche, and Annemiek van Vleuten in cycling’s elite “Triple Crown” club.

Van der Poel was left in awe by the Slovenian’s derring-do, and could only tip his hat in honor.

“I’ve never seen a performance like this in a race,” Van der Poel said. “We know he’s an exceptional rider, and he proved it again today.”

Evenepoel: ‘With any normal guy, 100km is too far’

Evenepoel
By the time Evenepoel reacted, it was too late. (Photo: ZAC WILLIAMS/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Evenepoel added the important caveat that such an early move would have been doomed to failure for anyone else.

“With any normal guy, 100km to go is too far,” Evenepoel told FloBikes. “But Tadej this year is not normal. He deserves it.”

Evenepoel and his Belgian teammates still felt they had the race under control even after Pogačar powered off bravely and blissfully alone.

“I said if we can keep it to 1:15, it would be great. Then I saw my guys going out the back,” he said.

“Tadej was on a special day. In some races, you’d say it’s easily controllable, especially with the headwind on the climb,” Evenepoel said. “He rode as fast as we did in the back.”

After double-gold in Paris, the Belgian star — who’s also a long-distance merchant — was a favorite to pull the double-double after winning the ITT on Sunday.

Evenepoel, who finished fifth, had no regrets about his own race.

“We controlled the race. We tried, we did the maximum, and fifth is the best I could do,” he said, praising Pogačar’s year.

“He is the guy who deserves to ride in the rainbow jersey next season.”





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