The 2024 UCI Road and Para-cycling Road World Championships concluded in spectacular fashion on Sunday with Tadej Pogačar claiming the final rainbow jersey of the nine-day event in Zurich, Switzerland. The Slovenian won the Men Elite road race with a monumental ride marked by a daring attack with more than 100km remaining. His victory caps off a historic season, including victories at the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France.
Joining a breakaway that emerged earlier on the seven laps of the city circuit - and that included Pogačar’s fellow Slovenian Jan Tratnik - Pogačar dropped the last rival remaining on his wheel, France’s Pavel Sivakov, with 51.5km to go and rode to victory on his own. After 273.9km of racing (with 4,470m of elevation) starting from Winterthur, Australia’s Ben O’Connor took the silver medal (+34’’) with the 2023 UCI World Champion, Dutchman Mathieu Van der Poel (+58’’), winning the sprint for third place.
“I cannot believe what just happened, after this kind of season,” Pogačar reacted. “I put a lot of pressure on myself for today. The race unfolded pretty quick and there was a dangerous breakaway in the front and I maybe did a stupid attack but luckily Jan was there with me and I never gave up. It’s an incredible day.
“I don’t know what I was thinking, I went with the flow and luckily I made it, but it was super tough,” he added after yet another historic feat.
A couple of weeks after his most recent win, in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, Pogačar’s title is his 23rd victory in a season he began early March with an 81km solo victory in the Strade Bianche.
He delivers the first Elite UCI rainbow jersey for Slovenia, after previous titles for Janez Brajkovič (Men Under 23 individual time trial in 2004) and Matej Mohorič (Men Junior road race 2012 and Men Under 23 road race 2013), and notably claims a ‘Triple Crown’ - Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, UCI World Championships - only achieved previously by Belgium’s Eddy Merckx (1974) and Ireland’s Stephen Roche (1987).