It was an unexpected and heavy blow for Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar, who struggled through the elite men’s individual time trial and was caught on the final climb by three-time winner from Belgium Remco Evenepoel on Sunday in Kigali, Rwanda.
All eyes were on the rivalry between the two powerful riders ahead of this event, but it was Pogačar who appeared to suffer through the opening checkpoints, losing time to Evenepoel and his other competitors at each mark of the challenging parcours that finished at the Kigali Convention Centre.
Pogačar started the time trial two and a half minutes ahead of Evenepoel, but lost time to the Belgian at the checkpoints, indicating early on that he was not having his best performance.
Evenepoel, who was on an exceptional ride, had Pogačar insight on the flatter sections before the last climb, and caught and passed him along the final cobbled ascent of the Côte de Kimihurura with roughly one kilometre remaining, and while he tried to stay with the Belgian, he eventually lost ground and ended up finishing 2:37 back in fourth place.
“For sure, it was a hard one to swallow, but he’s Remco, and he is so good in this discipline. I hope that he prepared 100% for this discipline today and that he will be 99% ready for next Sunday,” Pogačar said.
“I saw that I was just one second from the podium, and that is bittersweet. If I knew that I was only one second off, in the last kilometre, maybe I would have a bit of extra motivation, but I didn’t know, and today I will probably regret it. Tomorrow is a new day, and I can be happy with how I suffered today,” Pogačar said.
It was also Pogačar’s 27th birthday, and so not the gift he would have been hoping for, on that, he said, “This year, I don’t want to spoil myself to win today, so let’s try to win on Sunday.”
The men’s field took on a 40.6km course, at 1,450 metres of altitude, that included four climbs; twice over the…
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