Slovenian Tadej Pogacar won his first road cycling world champion title on Sunday in Zurich, after the Giro and the Tour de France. He succeeds his rivals Mathieu Van der Poel and Remco Evenepoel, powerless this year.
This is undoubtedly the last major title missing from his XXL track record. Tadej Pogacar became world road cycling champion on Sunday in Zurich, and will therefore have the right to wear the famous rainbow jersey. After Eddy Merckx (1974) and Stephen Roche (1987), the Slovenian becomes the third rider in history to win the “triple crown”, that is to say winning the Giro, the Tour de France and the Worlds the same year.
In 2024, the best year of his career, “Pogi” also triumphed in the Strade Bianche, the Tour of Catalonia, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the Grand Prix de Montréal. In Zurich this Sunday, he made a dazzling acceleration 100 kilometers from the finish before widening the gap and leaving no chance to the Dutchman Mathieu Van der Poel and the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, the last two winners of the competition.
Note that Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe was forced to retire after falling in the peloton at the start of the race. Hit in the shoulder, the 2020 and 2021 world champion had to be evacuated by ambulance.
