The sun was already drooping gently over Lake Zürich by the time Remco Evenepoel had completed the podium ceremony and his mixed zone interviews after defending his Road World Championships time trial title.
Safely back in the rainbow jersey, Evenepoel stepped out of the finish area and onto Bellevue square, where a car was waiting to ferry him to the last of his day’s obligations at the press conference and doping control. A crowd of local fans milled around as he sat into the passenger seat, applauding generously as he was driven away.
This serene, eastern shore of the lake is known as the Goldcoast, precisely because it is bathed in the golden light of the evening sun for a stretch longer than the rest of the city. It seemed a fitting kind of spot for a man to retain his world title and add to his own collection of gold, but Evenepoel’s picture-perfect finale only came after a time trial he described as the most difficult of his career.
“It was the hardest time trial of my life,” Evenepoel confessed after beating Filippo Ganna (Italy) to the crown by just six seconds. “But in the end, you have to be able to read your body well if you want to win.”
The problems began at the start gate, when Evenepoel unshipped his chain as he settled into position for his 46km effort. A replacement bike was quickly produced, but Evenepoel managed to reseat his chain on his gold-decked original with 25 seconds or so to spare.
“I think if there’s one thing my wife taught me over the years, it’s that I have no control over things that are not controllable, so I tried to stay calm and focused on the race,” Evenepoel said afterwards.
“But it’s never a good thing to be occupied with things like that before the start.”
While that immediate crisis was averted, another presented itself almost as soon as Evenepoel had rolled down the start ramp and begun his effort. No numbers were showing on the display of his powermeter, and an ad hoc effort at rebooting the system proved fruitless.
Like so many of his contemporaries, Evenepoel has spent his entire time trialling life guided by the live data from his powermeter, carefully painting his effort according to the numbers. Now he was forced to improvise a masterpiece. Instead of the usual considered calibration, Evenepoel found himself flinging paint at the canvas like Jackson Pollock as he battled to fend off Ganna and claim gold.
“It was a blind time trial, so I don’t think it was my best one,” Evenepoel said. “I think I could have gone faster today, but of course, if you don’t have the numbers, you don’t really know what you’re doing.
“In the first kilometre, I kind of turned the powermeter on and off again, but it didn’t work, so something must have gone wrong when the chain dropped. It was pretty difficult without the numbers. I think everybody knows how much I ride by numbers, and I had made the plan to win the time trial on the climb, but that was not really the case in the end.”
Descent
This Worlds time trial was, essentially, a race of three parts, with the flat opening from the Oerlikon velodrome followed by a rugged central section and then the rapid run along the lakeshore to the finish line. Evenepoel looked a likely world champion when he reached the first time check six seconds clear of Ganna, but when the Italian only conceded a further three seconds on the climb Uetikon am See, the outlook was rather less clear.
All the while, Evenepoel was being given broad brushstrokes of the overall picture from national coach Sven Vanthourenhout, and he took enough risks on the drop down to the lakeshore to enter the final 9km with a lead of 19 seconds over Ganna. In the closing kilometres, however, the Italian drew inexorably closer, and Evenepoel had just six seconds to spare when he reached the finish.
“I think I was lucky the time trial was not 5km longer because maybe I would have lost – but that’s not the case,” said Evenepoel, who reckoned he had won the world title thanks to his descending.
“If you go completely tired in the downhills, you will make mistakes, or at least not go as fast as you would if you’re fresh. And I think that was my victory today. I still a bit fresh over the top of the climb, and I took quite a lot of risks on the downhill without braking.”
Even so, Evenepoel confessed to losing his bearings again when the road flattened out in the finale. Without his power data as a guide, the Belgian focused purely on staying top of his biggest gear for as long as he possibly could. Then again, when all the technological accoutrements are stripped away, the central premise of time trialling remains the same as it ever did. It’s an exercise in the management of suffering.
“I was starting to struggle,” Evenepoel said. “Normally when I have the numbers, I focus on staying close to 400 watts average power. But here, I was not close to that, I was just looking for my biggest gear possible and trying to keep the speed.
"Let’s say that pure pacing-wise, it was probably not the best time trial of my life, but it was also the most difficult one.”
Either way, it was enough. Even with just six seconds to spare, Evenepoel had time to punch the air as he crossed the line, celebrating the latest landmark in a remarkable career. Before Sunday, no male Olympic time trial champion had ever even attempted to win the Worlds in the same year, but Evenepoel summoned up the force to eke another title from a sparkling season that also saw him place on the podium of his debut Tour de France.
The light hasn’t dimmed on Evenepoel’s golden-hued season just yet, of course. He will return to Switzerland next weekend in a bid to regain the road title he won in Wollongong two years ago. Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) will be the favourite, but on Sunday’s evidence, Evenepoel has no reason to be discouraged.
“Winning this jersey again will allow me to live a little more relaxed towards next Sunday,” Evenepoel said. “It takes away a bit of pressure, let’s say. My legs are there, that’s clear. I think I can still improve a bit towards next Sunday, like I did for the Olympics as well.”
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