In Sunday’s Elite Men’s European Continental Road Race Championship, the name was Evenepoel, the distance was 75km and the margin turned out to be 31 seconds, though the Slovenian’s lead over his Belgian rival was over a minute for much of the final 30km of the 202.5km race from Privas to Guilherand-Granges in the southeastern French department of Drôme.
The inevitable
This was after the cheeky Pogačar told TNT Sports before the race that a 70km solo was too difficult in view of the headwinds that would be a disadvantage on the long flat stretches of road between the climbs. As the French say, “Mon oeuil!” [my eye]. The irrepressible Slovenian took off on the last of three ascents of the Saint Romain de Lerps (7km @ 7.2%), with only Evenepoel, Spain’s Juan Ayuso and Paul Seixas of France able to stay with him. But not for long.
Ayuso was the first to be dropped, then the Frenchman and finally Evenepoel was gapped at 73km. Pogačar slowly increased his lead while Evenepoel waited for his fellow droppees to help him with the chase. But they were helpless and depended on Remco to do all the work because he was the best rider in the group. So the gap to Pogačar gradually grew bigger, to 38 seconds at one point – until Pogačar hit the flats and those nasty headwinds. His lead shrank to 23 seconds with 60km left to ride. But then he hit the last three of six climbs of the Val d’Enfer (translation: Valley of Hell) (1.6km @ 9.7%), and his lead grew out again, to 44 seconds at 48km and eventually to 1:05.
“I [found] myself in the front and I tried to keep a good gap around one minute,” Pogačar said. “It was a comfortable gap. I don’t think it was super dominant. Remco was chasing me and I couldn’t give up until the finish line. I had to push really, really hard. I’m happy it’s over and another title.” He went on to say, “On the third lap I saw there [were] four or five Belgians and I was alone, so it was better to be on the attack than together with too many guys who can attack you. So I tried and I succeeded.” As usual.
Remco is second again
Eventually, Evenepoel dropped his unhelpful fellow travelers, but – as in the World Championships – it was too little and too late. The result answered the question of if he would have had a chance to beat Pogačar in the Kigali road race world championship if he hadn’t had the alleged problems with his saddle. The answer is: No. At this stage of Evenepoel’s career, Pogačar remains the better climber. The very promising 19-year-old Seixas, who looks like yet another potential French Grand Tour winner, dropped Ayuso and, eventually, Italy’s Christian Scaroni, to win a valuable bronze medal for the home country, 3:41 behind the all-conquering winner.
This race was supposed to be a showdown between racing’s Big Three, Pogačar, Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard. But the Danish superstar was dropped on the second ascent of the Saint Romain de Lerps, near the halfway point of the race, and abandoned soon afterwards. This was just more proof that Vingegaard is not a one-day racer and likely will never be.
A major win for Vollering
In Saturday’s Elite Women’s race, Vollering broke away from the peloton with 40km left to ride on the 116km circuit, on the Saint Romain de Lerps, the race’s longest climb, which perfectly suited her skillset – unlike the short, steep climbs of the World Championships, where she finished seventh. She was followed only by Dutch teammate Anna van der Breggen, Poland’s Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney and Elisa Longo Borghini of Italy. Some 2.5km down the road, she accelerated again and this time no one could follow. Vollering gradually increased her lead over her pursuers until it became a one-on-one against Niewiadoma-Phinney, who was riding with van der Breggen – but van der Breggen was not interesting in lifting so much as a toe to help her catch her teammate.
Gaps and times here are just guesses as the organizers suffered a total technological breakdown, which led to some flatly ridiculous data, such as showing 50.6km left to ride when Vollering was less than 2km from the finish line. This left spectators and commentators as much in the dark as were the riders, who were not allowed to use team radios. This was one of the most important races of the year. If this is typical of Europe’s technological nous, the Continent is in big trouble. Fortunately, everything worked perfectly during the Elite Men’s race. Hmm.
But it didn’t faze Vollering, of course, who celebrated joyously at the finish after winning the first major jersey of her career. She had never won a European or world title, so it was a big win for the Dutch rider after what has been an occasionally frustrating season. She will now be allowed to wear the jersey of the European champion in all her races until next year’s edition of the race.
“I’m really proud to take the jersey home for the Dutch team, because we did the perfect race today together,” Vollering said. “And also I felt really good today and the last few days. I was really confident, and I wanted to try to go early, because I knew that all the [time trial] training I did for World Championships, I knew that it was still in me. So I wanted to try to go early and do the last part all by myself, to be sure of the victory. And also, because we did such a good race with the whole team, I really wanted to finish it off for them.”
Niewiadoma-Phinney finished second, 1:18 behind, as van der Breggen did not contest the sprint, out of fairness for her Polish rival, who did all the riding. Good for her! Vollering’s victory was the ninth Dutch win in the 10 editions of the European Championship, a remarkable record.
Results of 2025 Elite Men’s European Championship Road Race
- Tadej Pogačar, Slovenia 4:59:29
- Remco Evenepoel, Belgium +0:39
- Paul Seixas, France +3:41
- Christian Scaroni, Italy +4:04
- Toms Skujiņš, Latvia +4:16
Results of 2025 Elite Women’s European Championship Road Race
- Demi Vollering, Netherlands 2:57:53
- Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, Poland +1:18
- Anna van der Breggen, Netherlands +1:24
- Elise Chabbey, Switzerland +2:31
- Franziska Koch, Germany “
