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Perhaps the strangest part of Sunday’s World Championships showdown between Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel is that we don’t quite know what to expect. Somehow, two of the greatest road racers of their generation have conspired to miss each other’s careers almost entirely. There is no hinterland of tactical ploys to fall back on, no highlights reel of sprints to the line. Pogacar and Evenepoel are racing on a blank sheet of paper.
They have ridden different grand tours and picked different Monument classics. When they were finally set to face off, at Liege-Bastogne-Liege last year, Pogacar crashed out as Evenepoel raced away to defend his title. They missed one another at the Olympics Games when Pogacar opted out, partly to preserve energy after an epic year and partly over a dispute with the Slovenian cycling federation after they overlooked his girlfriend Urska Zigart. Even this summer’s Tour de France – their first grand tour together – rarely threw up a head to head, mainly due to Pogacar’s dominance.
Pogacar is certainly the favourite to win his first world title and round off a spectacular year after his historic double of victories at the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France. This hilly 270km route from the city of Winterthur to the centre of Zurich, where seven laps of an undulating city circuit await, is the most strenuous parcours since Innsbruck in 2018, and it suits Pogacar to perfection. Plus: he’s Pogacar, a seemingly unbreakable force in the form of his life.
“I want to take the World Championship jersey,” he said, after winning the Tour de France. “It has looked very good on [reigning world champion] Mathieu van der Poel. I want one time to have the rainbow jersey on my back.”
But if anyone can beat him, it’s Evenepoel. The 24-year-old Belgian won the world title in Wollongong in 2022, and he too is in irresistible form after winning double Olympic gold in Paris, which he backed up by defending his time trial world title in Switzerland last weekend, despite suffering a dropped chain on the start line.
“Tadej is the man to beat, but that’s why I’m here,” Evenepoel said this week.
One advantage Evenepoel holds over Pogacar is his nationality. Teammates could play a decisive part in the outcome, and the Belgian squad is stacked full of comfortable climbers in Tiesj Benoot, Jasper Stuyven, Laurens de Plus and Tim Wellens – a man who spent July sacrificing himself for Pogacar’s Tour victory with Team UAE Emirates. Evenepoel will have plenty of help on the ascents if he needs it.
By contrast, Pogacar’s strongest Slovenian teammates are Primoz Roglic, a five-time grand-tour winner in his own right who may not be desperate to sacrifice himself for Pogacar’s gain, and Matej Mohoric, who withdrew this week with injury. Pogacar doesn’t necessarily need a supporting cast, and it is questionable whether even the Belgians can disrupt his mission.
There are other contenders in the field. Defending champion Van der Poel is a threat in any one-day race, but the lumpy course plays against the Dutchman. France’s double world champion Julian Alaphilippe arrives in decent form searching for a third title. Britain carry a strong contingent led by Olympic mountain bike champion Tom Pidcock on a team that also features the Yates twins, Adam and Simon, and young Scottish rider Oscar Onley.
But it is hard to make a case for anyone beyond Pogacar and, maybe, Evenepoel. Pogacar would become only the third rider to win the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and World Championship road race in the same year, after Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche. Evenepoel can achieve a remarkable set of doubles – Olympic and world champion in both road race and time trial in the same year, and the first rider to win both men’s elite races at the same World Championships.
History is at stake and, strangely, a cycling rivalry for the ages could finally spark to life.
Vollering v Kopecky
The women’s race sees a rivalry renewed between two teammates at SD Worx-Protime: Demi Vollering will have the backing of a deep Dutch team in Zurich on Saturday, but Belgium’s Lotte Kopecky is the reigning world champion desperate to defend her crown, and with plenty of strength by her side too.
Vollering has endured a year of near misses, losing a dramatic Tour de France finale atop Alpe d’Huez to Poland’s Kasia Niewiadoma by just four seconds. She finished second at the recent Tour of Romandie, to Kopecky, and was runner-up again last weekend in the individual time trial.
She is, frankly, sick of coming second. “The fire is burning after the loss in the Tour de France,” Vollering told Dutch broadcaster NOS. “I’m looking for revenge and I’m very motivated for this World Championships.”
Kopecky has become a superstar in her homeland since becoming world champion last year in Glasgow, and where Evenepoel carries Belgian hope this weekend, Kopecky carries expectation. She landed a psychological blow with that victory in Romandie, but the climbing route should suit Vollering better. The 154km ride from Uster to Zurich includes 2,250m of elevation, dished out mainly via four circuits of the city before the finish line.
Among the rest of the field, the great Marianne Vos is a three-time world champion and always a contender, though the route may more enticing to riders such as new Tour queen Niewiadoma and Italy’s Elisas Longo Borghini. Yet even if road racing is an unpredictable business, it is hard to look beyond the Kopecky-Vollering rivalry.
“It’s not too bad to have a time trial before the road race, it’s good preparation,” said Vollering, who lives in Switzerland. “But it’s a road race, so you need a little bit more than only the good legs, for sure. You need a little bit of luck too. And you need to be smart in the head. There are so many factors you need to have to win. It’s not only the strongest who wins the road race.”
