Pogacar's brilliance, Evenepoel's belief and the duel that defines the Worlds

The combination of Tadej Pogačar’s otherworldly talent, a strongman’s course and a steady slew of withdrawals all seemed to point to the same thing: the elite men’s road race at the World Championships in Kigali looked destined to be a coronation rather than a contest.

Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel’s afternoon of contrasts in the time trial last Sunday has gently lifted the prevailing sense of resignation around the event. Suddenly, the defending champion doesn’t look quite so invulnerable. At the very least, it looks as though he might have a rival worthy of the name in Evenepoel.

Even so, it’s wise to be cautious when seizing on apparent weaknesses in this particular iteration of Pogačar. There were similar questions raised after Pogačar’s subdued showing at the Critérium du Dauphiné time trial in June. 24 hours later, the Slovenian doled out such a hammering to Jonas Vingegaard at Combloux that he ended the Dauphiné as a contest and essentially removed all suspense from the Tour de France while he was at it.

French national coach Thomas Voeckler is among those refusing to get too animated by Pogačar’s sluggish showing in the time trial. “As soon as there’s a hiccup, we say ‘What if?’” Voeckler told L’Équipe. “Remember at the Dauphiné, after the time trial. ‘What if?’ And then the next day…”

In the aftermath of that Dauphiné time trial, it was reported that Pogačar was irked by Visma | Lease a Bike’s euphoria at the result, and that inspired his response the following day. True or not, it fed into the idea that Pogačar, behind the smiles and the tuft, is at heart a fierce competitor whose fire is fuelled by perceived slights.

UAE Team Emirates-XRG directeur sportif Andrej Hauptman hinted at that Michael Jordan-esque quality this week, when he was asked how his charge would have reacted to being caught and passed by Evenepoel.

“Tadej immediately turns every such thing to his advantage, and I strongly believe that he will use this ‘positive anger’ in Sunday’s race,” Hauptman told RTVSLO. “If there is such a possibility, he will immediately try to settle the scores on Sunday.”

Behind Pogačar’s psyche, there is also the simple fact that he is, by a considerable distance, the best bike rider in the world, and these past two seasons have been, by a distance, the best of his astonishing career.

He betrayed signs of fatigue – mental rather than physical – at the end of the Tour, and when he returned to action in Canada this month, some hastily read a little too much into his 22nd-place at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec. His ‘worst one-day result in three years’ trilled one website excitedly, as though it were a crisis.

Really? Two days later, he eased his way around the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal course and ceded victory to his UAE teammate Brandon McNulty. It later emerged that Pogačar had been ill ahead of the trip to Canada, but his accelerations in Mount Royal Park strongly suggested that he would be ready for Rwanda.

Or at least for the road race. The time trial was undoubtedly a jour sans, but it was also of a piece with Pogačar’s previous performances in one-off time trials at championships over the years. The hilly parcours convinced us – and Pogačar himself – that he could win the rainbow jersey, but this particular discipline belongs to Evenepoel. A sobering lesson, no more and no less.

On Sunday, by contrast, Pogačar will feel he has homefield advantage on a Kigali course that is 267.5km in length with some 5,475m of total climbing. “It’s a test of strength, of endurance, where all tactics will be thrown out the window, where the guys will have to be able to go into a deeper dimension of suffering, of mental strength, than their opponents,” Voeckler said. “In the final hour, it won't even be a bike race anymore.”

The strongest man will win, in other words. And – the occasional time trial notwithstanding – that man is almost always Tadej Pogačar.

But if anyone believes he can upset those odds, of course, it’s Remco Evenepoel, and the Belgian’s confidence will be higher again after his victory in the time trial on Sunday. True, he won the time trial in Zurich twelve months ago, and he was then soundly beaten by Pogačar in the road race a week later, but the context here is entirely different.

In September 2024, Evenepoel was essentially running on fumes after an all-action summer that saw him place third in his debut Tour de France and then claim both time trial and road race gold at the Paris Olympics.

This time out, the Worlds isn’t an addendum to a packed season but rather an opportunity to put a different slant on a trying year. A training crash delayed the start of Evenepoel’s season until April, and he struggled at the Tour, abandoning on the Tourmalet.

Evenepoel immediately zeroed in on the Rwanda Worlds, rather than the Vuelta, as his best chance to make amends for his Tour disappointment. The 25-year-old tends to thrive when working towards a particular project, and there were already distinct signs of form at the Tour of Britain earlier this month, when he sprinted to victory on The Tumble.

His display in Kigali last Sunday, meanwhile, was arguably the best time trialling exhibition of a career filled with them, capped by catching and passing Pogačar on the cobbled haul to the line.

Yes, that moment will have poked Pogačar’s inner Jordan, but it will also have added to Evenepoel’s considerable reservoir of confidence. In the high mountains of the Tour, Evenepoel knows that Pogačar operates on a different plane to him, and he races accordingly, but the Belgian retains considerable belief in his own ability to go big in the toughest one-day races.

Three years ago, after all, Evenepoel claimed a remarkable, long-range victory at the Wollongong Worlds, and he produced another striking solo exhibition to win the Paris 2024 Olympics.

This past Spring, meanwhile, Evenepoel remorselessly hunted down a seemingly unbeatable Pogačar at Amstel Gold Race – although he suffered a bracing reminder of his truncated pre-season at Liège-Bastogne-Liège a week later.

And that tees up the most intriguing element of this World Championships, namely that it might finally provide a true Pogačar-Evenepoel head-to-head in a big one-day race. Circumstances – crashes and their aftermath – have repeatedly postponed the anticipated duel at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but both men arrived in Rwanda off the back of roughly similar preparation.

It won’t happen in a vacuum, of course, given that Juan Ayuso (Spain), Isaac del Toro (Mexico) and Tom Pidcock (Great Britain) are all on the start line, though pedigree and form point to Evenepoel as the man most likely to stop Pogačar. 

Whether he can do it or not is another question, but as ever with Evenepoel, it won’t be dull to watch.