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Rainbow jersey completes Tadej Pogačar’s amazing 2024 Triple Crown

Ben O'Connor follows Vuelta runner-up spot with Worlds silver

September 29, 2024
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It has been 37 years since Stephen Roche became the second male rider after Eddy Merckx to win cycling’s Triple Crown–the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France and the rainbow jersey–but on Sunday’s conclusion to the 2024 UCI Road World Championships in Zürich, Switzerland, Tadej Pogačar entered the Pantheon of greats. The Slovenian went to work with 100 km to go and went solo with 50 km remaining to complete a dream season. Pier-André Côté was top Canadian in 44th.

The Course

The men’s race was a little different from all the other road races that proceeded it. Starting northeast of Zürich in Winterthur, it hit the Buch am Irchel and Kyberg climbs on the way to the Zürich circuits. Seven 26.8-km laps contained the 1.4-km, 7.2-percent Wilikon climb. The total length was 273.9 km. For once, it didn’t rain on a Zürich 2024 road race.

The Canadian contingent was Michael Woods, Derek Gee and Pier-André Côté. Guillaume Boivin was scheduled to race but did not start because of illness. Rusty got down to some solid chow on Sunday.

Rusty gets it in ‘im at Worlds.

In the early part of the race, a sextet of fugitives flew their national flags. They hit the first passage of the finish line with a 5:30 lead. Two-time world champion Julian Alaphilippe crashed out. Spanish aces Pello Bilbao and Mikel Landa also crashed seperately, the latter abandoning. Mattias Skjelmose, fifth place at the Vuelta a España, also climbed off his bike.

Belgium took over from Slovenia at the pointy end of the peloton, so the lead was down to 3:40 after one of seven circuits. Portuguese ace João Almeida packed it in too. With five laps to go a chase containing Pavel Sivakov and Jay Vine took off. After Primož Roglič took over the pacemaking on Wilikon, Pogačar attacked.

There he goes…

Jan Tratnik, in the Sivakov-Vine chase, waited for his teammate Pogačar. The two groups converged. With 3 laps to go, only Pogačar and Sivakov survived in front of the peloton. The peloton still contained Woods, Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, Enric Mas, O’Connor, David Gaudu, Jai Hindley and Marc Hirschi. With 70 km remaining and the leading duo within a minute, Woods made a surge.

Woods accelerates in the chase.

The French-Slovenian alliance couldn’t pull out a minute on the 20-strong chase. When they entered the penultimate lap, the duo had 41 seconds over Oscar Onley, Ben Healy and Toms Skujiņš and 50 seconds over the rest of the chase, which no longer contained Woods.

With 51 km to go, the green-clad Slovenian went solo. The chase was in pieces and Evenepoel’s gang was losing ground.

When he heard the bell, Tadej Pogačar was 1:05 ahead of Healy and Skujiņš, still on their podium bid, and 1:25 clear of Evenepoel, van der Poel et al. On Wilikon Swiss Hirschi tried to bridge to Healy and Skujiņš. The crowds loved it. Hirschi ended up bringing the chase closer to the Latvian and Irishman and narrowing the gap to Pogačar.

Pogacar started to suffer on the final lap.

Sixteen kilometres remained and the gap was only 42 seconds. He had seven chasers on his tail. They started skirmishing for the podium, and Evenepoel looked wanting, but he rallied. O’Connor seized a gap before the red kite and made it stick. Van der Poel came around Skujiņš in the sprint to round out the podium.

Next year’s worlds will be wild, as relentless climbing characterizes the Kigali, Rwanda road courses.

2024 UCI Road World Championships, Elite Men
Gold) Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) 6:27:30
Silver) Ben O’Connor (Australia) +0:34
Bronze) Mathieu van der Poel (The Netherlands) +0:58
44) Pier-André Côté (Canada) +12:09
54) Michael Woods (Canada) s.t.