{"id":202322,"date":"2025-09-22T11:58:38","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T11:58:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=202322"},"modified":"2025-09-22T11:58:38","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T11:58:38","slug":"evenepoel-demolishes-rivals-in-itt-worlds-as-reusser-dominates-womens-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/09\/22\/evenepoel-demolishes-rivals-in-itt-worlds-as-reusser-dominates-womens-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Evenepoel Demolishes Rivals in ITT Worlds as Reusser Dominates Women’s Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sunday\u2019s UCI Elite Men\u2019s World Championship Time Trial provided the most incredible image of the year, if not the decade, when with 2.1km left to ride on the 40.6km course in the Rwandan capital Kigali, defending champion Remco Evenepoel passed Tadej Poga\u010dar, who had started 2:30 before him.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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A bitter pill for Poga\u010dar<\/strong><\/h2>\n

\u201cThat was a bitter one to swallow,\u201d the clearly chagrined Slovenian said after the race. The 25-year-old Belgian then left the defending world road race champion behind on the last of four climbs, the cobbled C\u00f4te de Kimihurura (1.3km @ 6.3%), and went on to win his third ITT world championship in succession, the third man to accomplish the feat after Australia\u2019s Michael Rogers (2003-5) and Tony Martin of Germany (2011-13). Australian Jay Vine rode a superb race to finish \u2018only\u2019 1:14 behind, while another Belgian, Ilan van Wilder, completed the podium, at 2:36.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right, Poga\u010dar didn\u2019t even finish on the podium, crossing the line 1 second behind Van Wilder, and that on his 27th birthday. He clearly had a bad day, but it was such a bad day that you have to wonder how he will fare in the Road Race World Championship in a week\u2019s time. But Poga\u010dar being Poga\u010dar,<\/a> you have to believe that he will come out punching.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s really bittersweet,\u201d he said, visibly chagrined. \u201cMaybe if I\u2019d known I was only one second from the podium in the last kilometer, I could have found a little extra. Today I\u2019ll probably regret that, but tomorrow is a new day. It wasn\u2019t my best performance, but given the circumstances I can be satisfied with how I suffered.\u201d Then he looked forward. \u201cI hope [Evenepoel] prepared 100 percent for the time trial and 99 percent for next Sunday.<\/p>\n

Remco goes all in<\/strong><\/h2>\n

As for Evenepoel, he said,\u00a0 “I felt pretty good straight away. On the first flat part, I felt that the legs were turning. I was holding my pace without going over the limit. And then, the first climb of the day was actually quite hard, together with the last two ones, so I really pushed it there.<\/p>\n

“And then after, I saw I had quite a big gap, so I just wanted to keep a pace that I could hold until the bottom of [the C\u00f4te de P\u00e9age], and then I just went flat out on every climb. But I must say, the cobbles, I hated them at some point. It was so, so hard to really push through them. But in the end, I won is the most important. And Ilan, my teammate, and same age generation guy came third. So a phenomenal day for us, I guess.”<\/p>\n

Asked on TNT about passing Poga\u010dar, he said, \u201cOn a day like today it doesn\u2019t matter who it is [in front]. I just wanted to push as hard as possible from the first climb on and try and recover on the descents. Of course, on the cobbles, when I saw I was coming close [to Poga\u010dar] quite quickly, I knew I had to push through. But I have to say I knew it was really tough on the false flat part at the end, so I didn\u2019t want to go over the limit because I knew that last 400 meters were hard.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to say that he was looking forward to next year\u2019s race and becoming the only man to win four ITT world championships in a row. Don\u2019t bet against him doing that.<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Kigali 2025 (@kigali2025)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n