Tadej Pogačar’s classy tribute to Remco Evenepoel when training
The road world champion makes sure to honour the time trial champ
Tadej Pogačar may win almost everything he enters—but he’s also respectful of other champions.
Pogačar, the current road world champion, is careful to honour double Olympic champion and two-time world time trial champion even when he trains.
In an article with Het Nieuwsblad, Rune Herregodts shared an interesting aspect of his UAE teammate when he’s out riding.
“During training, we sometimes switch from a traditional bike to our time trial bike during a session. Tadej always changes his jersey at that moment so he doesn’t wear the rainbow jersey on his time trial bike,” he said. “He also hides the world champion stripes on his shorts by folding them over.”
Just what does a DS say to a rider over the radio in a pro TT?
Herregodts says he does it out of respect for Evenepoel. “He always carries a regular jersey in his pocket when he knows he’ll be switching bikes mid-session,” he said. “Classy, isn’t it?”
The history of the ITT world championships
This wasn’t always the case for the world road champion. Prior to 1994, the world road champion would wear their rainbow jersey in any time trial event. That’s because, in that year, the UCI revised the world championships format, ditching the TTT in favour of an individual event.
In the first pro time trial championships, it was Chris Boardman who claimed the win—which was his second rainbow jersey of the year. He had previously taken the individual pursuit title in Palermo, Italy.
In fact, back then, the UCI wasn’t as stringent with rainbow jersey stripes. You’d often see riders who were former world champions in other disciplines wearing the stripes on their jerseys. That changed in the 2000s when the UCI clamped down on its rules.
The same went for the inaugural Olympic champion, Pascal Richard. After winning the 1996 road race at the Atlanta Games, his team created a special Olympic championship jersey to wear on his trade team. That would only last a few years after the IOC decided teams were not allowed to use the proprietary rings on kit.
Nowadays, the Olympic champion is recognized with a gold helmet or bike.
