UCI Road World Championships: Tadej Pogačar demolishes field with 100-kilometre attack to win elite men's world title

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Slovenia's Tadej Pogacar celebrates with his team after winning the men's Elite Road Race cycling event during the UCI 2024 Road World Championships, in Zurich, on September 29, 2024. (Photo by Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP) — Tadej Pogacar celebrates his victory (Image credit: Getty Images)

The 2024 UCI Road World Championships witnessed history in the making on Sunday as Tadej Pogačar became the first rider in 37 years to follow up this season's victories in the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France with a gold medal and the rainbow jersey in the elite men's road race.

Just as in the elite women's equivalent event, at the start in Winterthur a minute's silence was held in memory of Muriel Furrer, the Swiss junior who died from injuries incurred in a crash in Thursday's race. Once again, too, the Swiss team stood at the front of the bunch during the brief but moving ceremony. Then the flag dropped and after a thankfully short neutralized section on the typically drawn-out Worlds course, racing on a dry, cool day got underway.

For nearly 40 kilometres, when it came to the early break nothing seemed to be sticking. But at last a concerted effort went clear with local hero Silvan Dillier (Switzerland), Luc Wirtgen (Luxembourg), and Piotr Pekala (Poland) receiving further valuable reinforcements in the shape of former World TT Champion Tobias Foss (Norway), Rui Oliveira (Portugal), Simon Geschke (Germany), Markus Pajur (Estonia) and Roberto Carlos Gonzalez (Panama). Pajur and Gonzalez started struggling almost immediately, but more than enough firepower and variety in talent remained amongst the half-dozen breakaways to handle the dauntingly difficult terrain that lay ahead.

Finally Pablo Castrillo, the recent double Vuelta a a España stage winner, made the first attack from the quiescent pack on the seven laps of the Zurich circuit. Castrillo rapidly self-combusted, but his brief dig contrasted sharply with the much more insistent drive that followed by ten other dangerously strong riders and nations: Jay Vine (Australia), Laurens De Plus (Belgium), Stevie Williams (GB), Kevin Vermaerke (USA), Magnus Cort (Denmark), Matteo Cattaneo (Italy), Johannes Staune-Mittet (Norway), Florian Lipowitz (Germany) Pavel Sivakov (France) and Slovenia's Tratnik.

The 'who'll blink first' strategy continued in the pack far longer than expected, and with four 26.9-kilometre laps to go, the two breaks fused, creating a lead 16-man group. A concerted, if belated, response by Denmark, Spain and the USA in the peloton dampened feelings amongst some TV commentators that the winner was now bound to be coming from the front group. Then when Slovenia also opted to chase with Domen Novak behind despite having Tratnik ahead, it was clear that something much more serious was still brewing in the pack.

And so what proved to be the race's defining moment suddenly hove into view. Pogačar himself opted to make a move, blasting up the right side of a draggy climb at the jaw-dropping distance of just over 100 kilometres to go. Andrea Bagioli (Italy) was the only one to briefly follow him as Pogačar yelled at Slovenian roadside team staff to tell him the gap on his chasers. But by the time Tratnik dropped back to tow the Slovenian up to the break, the Italian was long out of the duo's rear-view mirror.

Conventional thinking suggested Pogačar's audacious move was too early, even with memories of his 81-kilometre charge away at Strade Bianche and numerous other long-distance attacks to justify it. Certainly no-one could possibly have anticipated such a bid for victory, made at a moment when none of the favourites had even begun to start to think about attacking. But as has been proved time and again by Pogačar in bike races, conventional thinking just does not apply to the Slovenian's way of racing, and at the 2024 Worlds he was to prove that to a game-changing new limit.

Reckless or not, Belgium were understandably extremely troubled by the Slovenian's disappearance up the road, driving hard in the bunch to try and reduce the gap. The Belgians would likely have been even more worried to learn that as soon as Pogačar reached the break ahead with Tratnik as his escort, he then made it clear he meant business by briefly clipping off the front of the race. However, even for a rider as exceptional as the Slovenian, going solo at 90 kilometres from the finish was perhaps too ambitious a move and he eased back into the group of 16 again.

The gap was hovering at just over a minute at 83 kilometres to go as Tratnik delivered some textbook tactics to a highly unusual race scenario and unsurprisingly rode himself into the ground for his leader. When the 17 powered through the long finishing straight at the start of the third last lap the peloton could see the break ahead. But even the gap of 40 seconds was proving very hard to wear down. Only when the Dutch finally showed their hand did that advantage begin to shrink, just as Pogačar yelled at Tratnik to make another all-out effort - before blasting off again.

This time only Pavel Sivakov (France) was able to hold on at first, but even he had to lose Pogačar's wheel on the steepest part of the Zurichbergstrasse. Once across the top, though, the Slovenian wisely opted to wait for Sivakov, knowing that even for a giant of the sport like himself, attacking in a Worlds alone with 77 kilometres to go was the most daunting of tasks. The pressure of his repeated attacks, though, was such that in the peloton the

His double move had little effect apart from reducing the chase group to 35 riders, but Pogačar, meanwhile, was steadily maintaining a gap of 45 seconds. That small gap might have been bigger, but the Slovenian's constant glances behind meant he knew that fellow breakaway Sivakov could provide some more valuable support for a little longer - and, equally, that his long-term plan of keeping his pursuers at bay was working out just fine.

It was not as if the chasers were giving up the ghost completely. Van der Poel put in one acceleration after another and then Evenepoel himself, too, pushed hard on the downhill to try and keep his Worlds hope alight. However, the most promising chase group turned out to be formed by Ben Healy (Ireland), Toms Skujins (Latvia) and Oscar Onley (GB), reducing Pogačar and Sivakov's advantage to 40 seconds, with Van der Poel and a visibly frustrated Evenepoel trailing along some 20 seconds behind.

The gap was still arguably too narrow for comfort, though, and certainly not enough for Pogačar to count on much-needed support from a team car. And so it was that with 50.5 kilometres to go when Pogačar simply maintained his pace on the steepest climb of all, the Zurichbergstrasse for Sivakov the pace set down by his trade teammate was just too much, and the longest winning solo breakaway in the World Championships since 1971 began. Yet again - just like in Strade Bianche, just like in Liège, and just like in the Giro and Tour - Pogačar was out front alone and in a class of his own.

Van der Poel was brave enough to try at one point to make a lone counter-attack, catching a flagging Onley, while Skujins and Healy were working well together, even sharing bottles in their tenacious pursuit. But while Pogačar still briefly looked concerned and waved an arm after missing one bidon with a gel attached at a feed, even with an hour's racing remaining and 220 kilometres in his legs, increasingly it seemed as if he only had himself to beat.

However, there was almost a final twist in the tail of major proportions as on a day with over 4,000 metres of vertical climbing and after a breakaway of historic proportions, even a giant like Pogačar began to struggle slightly on the final lap. There was a second major wobble downwards in his time gap as Marc Hirschi (Switzerland) made a devastating counter-attack and suddenly, just as his triumph had seemed inevitable and for the first time in three hours, Pogačar looked vulnerable.

Hirschi was joined by Mas, the two then regained contact with Healy and Skujins and their numbers swelled further to Evenepoel, Van der Poel and O'Connor. Suddenly it was one rider ahead against seven behind and as the gap dropped even further to a nerve-wracking 39 seconds, the Slovenian staff waiting at the finish line began looking increasingly worried Yet for all a fast-recovering Evenepoel continued to chase, on a crucial little kicker on the long last downhill, Pogačar abruptly overcame his tiredness and in a trademark flurry of pedal-turning, opened up his gap to 50 seconds again.

So at long last and after one of the most memorable rides in Worlds history, Pogačar could finally celebrate a milestone achievement in the sport, punching the sky in delight as he celebrated his first road race gold medal. Just when it seemed like the Slovenian could not set the bar even higher, he has done so - and after winning cycling's two toughest Grand Tours in a single season, the most arduous, unpredictable, one-day race of them all is now in his palmares as well. ends

Alasdair Fotheringham has been reporting on cycling since 1991. He has covered every Tour de France since 1992 bar one, as well as numerous other bike races of all shapes and sizes, ranging from the Olympic Games in 2008 to the now sadly defunct Subida a Urkiola hill climb in Spain. As well as working for Cyclingnews, he has also written for The Independent, The Guardian, ProCycling, The Express and Reuters.