It has been 37 years since Stephen Roche became the second rider after Eddy Merckx to win cycling’s Triple Crown–the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the rainbow jersey–but on Sunday’s conclusion to the 2024 UCI Road World Championships in Zürich, Switzerland, Tadej Pogačar entered the Pantheon of greats. The Slovenian went to work with 100 km to go and went solo with 50 km remaining to complete a dream season. Pier-André Côté was top Canadian in 44th.
The Course
The men’s race was a little different from all the other road races that proceeded it. Starting northeast of Zürich in Winterthur, it hit the Buch am Irchel and Kyberg climbs on the way to the Zürich circuits. Seven 26.8-km laps contained the 1.4-km, 7.2-percent Wilikon climb. The total length was 273.9 km. For once, it didn’t rain on a Zürich 2024 road race.
#zurich2024 ME
🚩 Winterthur
🏁 Zürich
🚴🏻♂️ 274.5 Km
Weather: ☁ 12°C, scattered clouds
Route: https://t.co/Jvodq5GRTX pic.twitter.com/CluC8RoBpE— La Flamme Rouge (@laflammerouge16) September 29, 2024
The Canadian contingent was Michael Woods, Derek Gee and Pier-André Côté. Guillaume Boivin was scheduled to race but did not start because of illness. Rusty got down to some solid chow on Sunday.
In the early part of the race, a sextet of fugitives flew their national flags. They hit the first passage of the finish line with a 5:30 lead. Two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe crashed out. Spanish aces Pello Bilbao and Mikel Landa also crashed seperately, the latter abandoning. Mattias Skjelmose, fifth place at the Vuelta a España, also climbed off his bike.
Belgium took over from Slovenia at the pointy end of the peloton, so the lead was down to 3:40 after one of seven circuits. Portuguese ace João Almeida packed it in too. With five laps to go a chase containing Pavel Sivakov and Jay Vine took off. After Primož Roglič took over the pacemaking on Wilikon, Pogačar attacked.
Jan Tratnik, in the Sivakov-Vine chase, waited for his teammate Pogačar. The two groups converged. With 3 laps to go, only Pogačar and Sivakov survived in front of the peloton. The peloton still contained Woods, Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, Enric Mas, O’Connor, David Gaudu, Jai Hindley and Marc Hirschi. With 70 km remaining and the leading duo within a minute, Woods made a surge.
The French-Slovenian alliance…
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