100 kilometer breakaway to enter the legend: Pogacar offers himself a historic triple Tour de France-Giro-Cycling World Championships

Tadej Pogacar rejoint Merckx et Stephen Roche dans la légende. KEYSTONE – TIL BUERGY

Le Slovène Tadej Pogacar champion du monde après un raid insensé à Zuric. Mathieu Van der Poel s’offre la 3e place.

Tadej Pogacar won his first world championship title on Sunday in Zurich by attacking 100 kilometres from the finish to achieve a feat unseen in 37 years.

The Slovenian, who blew up the race with a completely crazy offensive, becomes only the third rider in history after Eddy Merckx in 1974 and Stephen Roche in 1987 to win the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the World Championships in the same year.

He won solo, maintaining a 34-second lead over Australian Ben O'Connor and a 58-second lead over Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel, who was the defending champion, after an insane and seemingly suicidal raid over a long (273 km) and very hilly (4,470 m elevation gain) course.

Accelerating 100 (!) km from the finish, a distance not recommended in all cycling manuals, to come back like an arrow on a group of breakaways where his compatriot Jan Tratnik was waiting for him. He put another layer on twenty kilometers later, this time with the Frenchman Pavel Sivakov, his teammate for the year at UAE, in his wheel.

The Frenchman Sivakov resisted then cracked

Sivakov accompanied Pogacar for a lap, delighted with the windfall, before cracking on the steep Bergstrasse. With 51 km to go, the Slovenian set off alone to build up to a one-minute lead over his first pursuers, finally completing his incredible odyssey and achieving one of the greatest feats in the history of cycling.

Behind, Remco Evenepoel, who was in the running for a new time trial-road race double after the one at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and finally 5th, and Mathieu Van der Poel ended up reacting with a small group to get dangerously close in a suspenseful finale. But without managing to catch up with the Slovenian who, without ever building up a huge advantage, held on until the end.