Cycling Road World Championships 2024: men’s elite race – live | Cycling Road World Championships

95km to go: Andrea Bagioli, the Italian cyclist, tried to go with Pogacar, but no luck. He was burned off, and Pogacar catches up with teamamate Tratnik, who had been up in those groups, and he will use his man as a windshield. He’s only 0.5km down on the leaders.

97 km to go: William Preston gets in touch: “When I was younger, I didn’t think much of the world championship road race. Coming from a mountain bike background, with those races being mostly a solitary endeavour, it seemed odd that the road side of the sport that focuses so much nowadays on having one team built around one rider mixes it up so much for one all or nothing tilt at the rainbow jersey.

“And then I realized the majesty of a a team thrown together, having to put contractual differences aside to get a stomp on and propel their rider first over the line. The thrilling heroics of it all hasn’t disappointed me since. It’s a wonderful thing. It’s way better than the Olympic road race, too, as it’s every year.”

Pogacar seems willing to pull the race along with him. Who needs teammates?

The Slovenians are pushing to lower the gap, and it’s dropping down to two minutes. They used a steep hill to take that gap down. If Pogacar and Roglic are present and correct, then Van der Poel is there. Where is Remco Evenepoel? Counterattacks aplenty. The gap is 1’30”, and Pogacar, in the lime green has gone to the front. He fancies it from this distance.

105km to go: The leading group looking backwards at the group charging towards him. The gap drops to 11 seconds, then 10. We all know what comes next. The gap to the peloton is three minutes. With a long time to go, the exciting bit.

110km to go: There’s been a split in the peloton, a decisive split? Some big hitters in there, and it will take the big riders a fair bit to get back up with them.

Laurens De Plus (Belgium), Jan Tratnik (Slovenia), Mattia Cattaneo (Italy), Magnus Cort (Denmark), Pavel Sivakov (France), Stephen Williams (Great Britain), Jay Vine (Australia), Kevin Vermaerke (USA), Johannes Staune-Mittet (Norway) and Florian Lipowitz (Germany) are those who have put the hammer down and are the chasers.

125km to go: A hole blown in the peloton as Pablo Castrillo, the Spanish cyclist who made a reputation for himself at the Vuelta, goes away. The Slovenians take up the chase, and end up losing two men in the chase. Evenepoel keeps in touch but there’s a few of his Belgian teammates behind. Mark Donovan from Team GB goes off too. Campanaerts resumes his engine role at the front of the group. Attack after attack.

130km to go: Five laps to go, with the steep climb beginning just past the finishing line. The peloton is shaped as if they are taking on a sprint. Sadly, no points for the intermediate here. The sun is looking hot, adding a variable that wasn’t available to riders in this week’s other races.

135km to go: This lap has seen something of an ease off, and the gap is nearly four minutes again. Pogacar is surrounded by teammates, and looks very relaxed.

140km to go: The sad sight of the two-time champion forced to abandon.

*Seems this is Roman Bardet.

145km to go: That Campanaert engine is keeping Remco Evenepoel in a good position at the front. The six men good and true continue to lead, their lead now below three minutes.

150km to go: Victor Campenaerts is pulling the race along. But Marc Hirschi, one of the minor favourites, is dropping off. He’s won races since, and a rider who came to the fore in 2020 was expected to be involved. This year and last he’s come back to form. A bit of mystery over what the trouble appears to be.

155km to go: The chocolate box backdrop to this race is full of punters, huge crowds out there. The favourites continue to be sat up, or lie low, whatever way you wish to describe. From experience, Switzerland is rarely this lively on a Sunday.

160km to go: There’s movement in the field, and the breakaway group may soon be on its last hurrahs. The gap is dropped down to three minutes or so: Silvan Dillier (Switzerland), Tobias Foss (Norway), Simon Geshke (Germany), Rui Oliveira (Portugal), Piotr Pekala (Poland), Luc Wirtgen (Luxembourg).

170km to go: Pogacar is looking to do the Giro-Tour-World triple, as done by Stephen Roche in 1987. Eddy Merckx did it in 1974, too. Annemiek van Vleuten did it in 2022, it should be noted.

Will Roglic do for Pogacar what Sean Kelly did here for Roche? Look at his celebration as his mate crosses the line.

180km to go: Bilbao, the Spanish rider, is up among the peloton as they climb the summit of an uphill section through the suburbs. Zurich is the type of place where nothing is really flat aside from in the centre.

190km to go: The gap from that bunch of rouleurs at the front to the peloton is 5’ 37”. So so long to go.

So much to come, and the favourites are down the peloton. We’re into the circuit now. Via Cyclingstage.com:

The riders enter the finishing circuit at the top. A little over 6 kilometres later an uphill kick on the densely forested Schmalzgruebstrasse precedes the downhill to Lake Zurich. Along the shores the riders head north to tackle the first of seven laps after 90 kilometres of action.

Approximately 2 kilometres after crossing the finish line – and some twisting and turning in the city centre -, the Zürichbergstrasse gives a first taste of what the finale has to offer. It slopes for 800 metres at 8.6% and peaks out at 15.9% near the end. A virtually flat section of 1.5 kilometres then leads onto a false flat preceding the next challenge. The hardest part of the ascent on the Witikonerstrasse stretches 1 kilometre with an average gradient of 8%, but as it begins and ends with a false flat one could also argue that it’s a 4.1 kilometres climb at 3.8%.

For about 10 kilometres, the circuit stays at a rolling plateau at an elevation hovering between 600 and 650 metres. A number of small uphill punches – such as the aforementioned Schmalzgruebstrasse (300 metres at 8%) – pep up this section before the riders fly down to Küsnacht. A false flat section of 1.5 kilometres precedes the passage through Zollikon and upon reaching the lake the route continues along the flat shores back to Zürich.

Each lap features 409 metres of climbing, while the last uphill kick on the Schmalzgruebstrasse appears just inside the last 10 kilometres.

205km to go: That breakaway group has 1’36” on their chasers, and 4’15 on the peloton. It’s pretty relaxed out there. Michael Woods, the Canadian veteran, is taking on a bowl of pasta with a fork. Plenty of discussion in the peloton as they climb through a forested hill.

210km to go: The French have lost their leader, the 2021 World Championships. The crash hasn’t been shown on TV.

218km to go: There’s a crash at the side of the road. Pello Bilbao, of Spain, one of their leading contenders, comes down, waves his teammates on. That didn’t look too good.

220km to go: Reminder: there’s no race radios in the worlds. Primoz Roglic just stopped for a call of nature, and with no teammate near him. Presumably, someone knows where he’s got to.

225km to go: A tough climbing section, with attendant cowbells and that asks questions of the breakaway. Simon Geshke (Germany), Markus Pajur (Estonia)
and Roberto Gonzales (Panama) are in there, though Pajur really struggled to get on, and fails to do so. He and Gonzales are off the back, with still a great deal of the road back to the main group. Geshke is riding in his last ever worlds.

235km to go: We’ve completed a circuit. There’s plenty of ups and down in this race, and still so long to go. Anyone committing at this point must feel they are in the form of their life or is being used up by the big guns. It’s Silvan Dillier (Switzerland), Tobias Foss (Norway), Rui Oliveira (Portugal), Piotr Pekala (Poland), Luc Wirtgen (Luxembourg), with 13 seconds back to chasers and 1’ 21” back to the peloton.

245km to go: Into open country, and through some farmland and, yes, Swiss cottages. It’s a Norwegian and an Ecuadorian, Jonathan Caicedo. The Vatican City entrant is being spat well out the back, and needs snookers – and prayers – to finish. But here comes a serious move, and it includes Bardet, and two Belgians. Three Americans, too. The gentleman from Belize, Cory Williams, who we saw go off, is now struggling badly. It’s a large group. With Jan Tratnik of Slovenia in there. Belgium and Slovenia – the teams of the big players – are marking out their territory.

255 km to go: Poland, Portugal, USA and Latvia are the early break. The Qatari rider is way off the back; with the big boys now. The peloton behind them is huge. Then, when that drops back, another trio goes away. We’ve already seen Roman Bardet and Mikel Landa to the fore and nobody is being allowed to go – just yet. Estonia, a member of the refugee team – and Belize? Venezuela on the chase. It’s the United colours of Benetton in these early stages.

265km to go: The peloton makes its way down to Zurich through Schaffhausen. Lovely morning son, and fresh air too. The freshest it gets, Swiss air. In Europe, that is. Sad to say that the Honduran rider, Fredd Matute, who is 38, is out the back already. Long way to go, Fredd. Up at the front, no real pattern, though an American rider, Larry Warbasse is up in the vanguard.

273km to go: It’s Poland who go on the attack first…

There’s just under 5km to the real start. Plenty of chat between the riders. The skies feature smatters of blue, far better than what came earlier this week. The Rhine Falls is passed – not to be confused with the Reichenbach Falls? They are zipping along in this virtual start, warming up the legs.

On the start line, the Swiss team take central stage as remembrance is paid, a moment of silence for Muriel Furrer. Her family have said they want the race to go ahead.

Here’s what the course will look like.

“Every time you have to start from zero,” says Remco Evenepoel, looking to add this to his time trial rainbow jersey. And Olympic gold. “All types of riders can win it.”

“Today’s going to be a hard and long race,” says Pogacar, who has been on a recce of the course with Matt Stephens. “It’s good to have him as a teammate,” Pog says of Primoz Roglic, fellow Slovenian. Between them, they won all three Grand Tours. It seems he plans to attack on the steepest section and that comes after the finish line of the circuit. How many laps out will he go for it?

Zurich has hosted an event that should not be remembered for the winner of its races. Instead, all thoughts might concentrate on the sad loss of Swiss rider Muriel Furrer, 18, who died after the women’s junior race. One of the cruelties of sport is that the show always goes on, though perhaps the departed want it that way, too. After Saturday’s thriller, with Lotte Kopecky winning the women’s race, and Friday, and when Niklas Behrens won the under-23 men’s road race, the course is familiar, though the weather might be better than much of the week. The contenders? Tadej Pogacar leads the list, of course. Can Remco Evenepoel, the Olympic Gold, put the pressure down? There’s Matthieu van der Poel, the defending champion. Let’s see, even if who actually wins cannot compete with the loss already suffered.