Tadej Pogacar clinched the world road race title on Sunday, adding it to his Tour de France and Giro d’Italia victories, becoming the first man since 1987 to achieve cycling’s triple crown in the same season.
The 26-year-old Slovenian completed the 273km race around Zurich in 6 hours, 27 minutes, and 30 seconds, finishing ahead of Australia’s Ben O’Connor by 34 seconds, with Dutch one-day specialist Mathieu van der Poel taking third place at 58 seconds behind.
Pogacar made history with a bold long-range attack, a tactic rarely seen at this level, joining the ranks of Ireland’s Stephen Roche from 1987 and Belgium’s Eddy Merckx from 1974 as a men’s triple crown champion. Annemiek van Vleuten achieved the women’s triple in 2022.
The decisive moment came when Pogacar surged forward 100km from the finish, aided by Slovenian teammate Jan Tratnik, who dropped back from an escape group to support him. Once in the lead, Pogacar never looked back. “It may have seemed like a reckless move, but I came here to win, and thankfully I did; I never gave up,” he said.
“For years, my focus has been on the Tour de France, not the world title, which I hadn’t won before, but this year everything fell into place.”
The race was highly competitive, featuring Pogacar, Van der Poel, and double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel. Evenepoel’s Belgian team worked hard at the front of the peloton to keep the Tour-Giro champion within striking distance for two tense hours, with Evenepoel often expressing frustration at his teammates for not sharing the workload.
Pavel Sivakov, a teammate of Pogacar at UAE, rode alongside him for about 40km before Pogacar made his decisive move. Skipping the Olympics to focus on the triple crown, Pogacar sealed his victory on a course well-suited to his strengths, featuring short, steep climbs.
The race, which began at 11 a.m. local time in Winterthur, included seven laps around Zurich with a challenging elevation gain of 4,470 meters, favoring the lighter riders. Meanwhile, former world champion Julian Alaphilippe fell and dislocated his shoulder early on, while other contenders like Spain’s Mikel Landa and Denmark’s Mattias Skjelmose dropped out.
