Towering over the race course of the World Championships, is the Grossmünster, the most recognisable building of Zürich with its twin Romanesque towers. It was from here that Huldrych Zwingli effectively kicked off the Swiss-German reformation, splitting the city and in time much of Switzerland from the Catholic church.
Tadej Pogačar’s momentous victory in the men’s road race at the Worlds, then, is not the first time that history has been made at the heart of Zürich, although it is the latest. The Slovenian became the fourth person and third man in cycling’s record books to win the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and the World Championships road race all in the same season, an achievement often thought so unlikely that it has often been dismissed by the best riders in the world.
