At the 2025 European Road Championships, Tadej Pogačar launched a blistering attack 75km from the finish line and won gold. The Slovenian had already established his Thomas De Gendt-like breakaway prowess at the 2024 World Championships with an attack from 51km out, 48km at last season’s Il Lombardia and, of course, his 81km solo spectacular at the 2024 edition of Strade Bianche. Pogačar is the greatest rider of a generation – if not the greatest of all time – so arguably his successful long-range attacks are no surprise.
But he’s not the only one catapulting out of the peloton’s grasp and staying free. Alessandro Covi at the 2022 Giro d’Italia, Bob Jungels at the 2022 Tour de France and Ben Healy at the 2023 Giro are just some examples of 50km+ solo attacks. In fact, Healy’s carving out a reputation as a breakaway expert, topping his Giro success with a stage victory at the 2025 Tour de France off the back of a 42km solo effort.
It appears that the dogmatic days of sprint trains have been derailed by the lone assassin. But why? What’s behind these successful breaks? Cyclingnews investigates, beginning with insight from a man Healy knows only too well.
Experienced input
Charly Wegelius is the head sports director at Healy’s team EF Education-EasyPost. The 47-year-old, who was born in Finland but grew up in York, raced professionally between 2000 and 2011. He then followed the oft-trodden path to directeur sportif at Garmin Sharp, taking up the role in 2012. He’s been with the American team ever since. Wegelius has racked up the miles and seen the sport evolve, so we thought he’d be the perfect sounding board to project our breakaway theories.
Firstly, Charly, how much of today’s success rate comes down to improved pacing via power data? “Riders have had power meters before racing styles changed, so that’s a misnomer. Clearly, riders have a good idea now of what a sustainable pace is over a long period of time. However, it still takes skill to manage your pace over changing terrain. It’s not as simple as punching in the average power and keeping that up; you have to know when to push and when to recover.” So, that’s a no.
What about race radios and real-time feedback? Has that altered the psychology of both attackers and chasers in long-range moves? “Race radios have been around for over 20 years,…
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