Despite a brilliant, battling effort, Mathieu van der Poel couldn't quite retain his Rainbow Jersey in the road race at the 2024 World Championships in Zurich. Instead, the Dutchman had to admit defeat to a simply incredible Tadej Pogacar.
Leaving all his rivals stunned, Pogacar attacked clear of the peloton with 100km to go and was not seen again until the finish line. "I saw it happen when he rode away. I actually thought he was throwing away his chances of the world title, but it turned out that wasn't the case," laughed a somewhat stunned Van der Poel in his post-race interview.
Inside the final 20km, it looked momentarily as if the efforts of the day had started to catch up with the Slovenian as his advantage dropped from over a minute to around 30 seconds at one point. "Suddenly the sign appeared that said 35 seconds," Van der Poel recalls of that time, where victory fleeting flickered back into view. "Then it seemed like we were getting a bit closer, but then he pulled away again. I think this is one of the toughest numbers I have ever experienced."
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1 | POGAČAR Tadej | Slovenia | 6:27:30 |
2 | O'CONNOR Ben | Australia | 0:34 |
3 | VAN DER POEL Mathieu | Netherlands | 0:58 |
4 | SKUJIŅŠ Toms | Latvia | ,, |
5 | EVENEPOEL Remco | Belgium | ,, |
6 | HIRSCHI Marc | Switzerland | ,, |
7 | HEALY Ben | Ireland | 1:00 |
8 | MAS Enric | Spain | 1:01 |
9 | SIMMONS Quinn | United States | 2:18 |
10 | BARDET Romain | France | ,, |
11 | ADRIÀ Roger | Spain | ,, |
12 | MOLLEMA Bauke | Netherlands | ,, |
13 | PEDERSEN Mads | Denmark | 3:52 |
14 | HOELGAARD Markus | Norway | ,, |
15 | ZIMMERMANN Georg | Germany | ,, |
16 | ONLEY Oscar | Great Britain | ,, |
17 | MCNULTY Brandon | United States | ,, |
18 | HINDLEY Jai | Australia | ,, |
19 | VERMAERKE Kevin | United States | ,, |
20 | VACEK Mathias | Czech Republic | ,, |
21 | RYAN Archie | Ireland | 6:04 |
22 | MADOUAS Valentin | France | ,, |
23 | WANDAHL Frederik | Denmark | ,, |
24 | CORT Magnus | Denmark | 6:36 |
25 | CICCONE Giulio | Italy | ,, |
26 | AYUSO Juan | Spain | ,, |
27 | VALTER Attila | Hungary | ,, |
28 | LIPOWITZ Florian | Germany | ,, |
29 | GROßSCHARTNER Felix | Austria | ,, |
30 | YATES Adam | Great Britain | ,, |
31 | KELDERMAN Wilco | Netherlands | ,, |
32 | VLASOV Aleksandr | Individual Neutral Athletes | ,, |
33 | GAUDU David | France | ,, |
34 | JORGENSON Matteo | United States | ,, |
35 | SIVAKOV Pavel | France | 6:40 |
36 | GESCHKE Simon | Germany | 7:01 |
37 | KÜNG Stefan | Switzerland | ,, |
38 | GRÉGOIRE Romain | France | ,, |
39 | POWLESS Neilson | United States | 12:09 |
40 | TEJADA Harold | Colombia | ,, |
41 | JOHANNESSEN Tobias Halland | Norway | ,, |
42 | COSTA Rui | Portugal | ,, |
43 | ROTA Lorenzo | Italy | ,, |
44 | CÔTÉ Pier-André | Canada | ,, |
45 | ZAMBANINI Edoardo | Italy | ,, |
46 | SCHULTZ Nick | Australia | ,, |
47 | SHEFFIELD Magnus | United States | ,, |
48 | ULISSI Diego | Italy | ,, |
49 | OOMEN Sam | Netherlands | ,, |
50 | STEINHAUSER Georg | Germany | ,, |
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