Remco Evenepoel rides to an emphatic solo win in Worlds road race

Remco Evenepoel rides to an emphatic solo win in Worlds road race

WOLLONGONG, Australia (CT) – A year on from Belgium’s frustrating home Worlds in Flanders, the country’s elite men have made amends with Remco Evenepoel taking a demonstrative solo victory.

Evenepoel was part of a 25-rider group that split off the peloton on the steep Mt. Pleasant climb with 77 km left to race. That group would go on to sweep up the remnants of some earlier breakaways before Evenepoel made his decisive attack with 35 km remaining.

Alexey Lutsenko (Kazakhstan) was able to follow Evenepoel initially, but when the pair reached the penultimate ascent of Mt. Pleasant, with 26 km to go, Evenepoel rode Lutsenko off his wheel and that was that.

The 22-year-old powered on alone for the last lap and a bit, taking what is already the 37th win of his remarkable young career, two weeks after winning the Vuelta a España – his first full Grand Tour.

Roughly 2:20 behind Evenepoel, in a group of favourites that only caught the remaining chasers in the final few hundred metres, Christophe Laporte (France) took out the sprint for silver ahead of Michael Matthews (Australia).

Laporte (third from left) winning the sprint for silver ahead of Matthews (far left).

How it unfolded

The early kilometres played host to two notable developments: the establishment of an 11-rider breakaway that would lead for several hours, and Mathieu van der Poel’s departure from the race after his arrest late the previous night.

On the race’s sole climb up Mt. Keira, the French team, led by Pavel Sivakov, increased the tempo, splitting the peloton with more than 220 km still to race. The likes of Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia), Wout van Aert (Belgium) and Dylan van Baarle (Netherlands) made it to the front of two pelotons, while defending champion Julian Alaphilippe (France), Michael Matthews (Australia), and Evenepoel were among those to miss the move.

When the 12 laps of the Wollongong city circuit began, a group of five riders split of the first, smaller peloton: Australian duo of Ben O’Connor and Luke Plapp, Sivakov, Pieter Serry (Belgium), and Samuele Battistella (Italy).

With a little over 180 km to go the two pelotons came back together, thanks largely to the work of the German team. As the newly combined peloton sat up and relaxed for the first time all day, the five chasers continued on towards the breakaway. They made the catch with 152 km left to race, making a group of 16 out front.

Australia’s Ben O’Connor (left) leading the breakaway of 16 riders. (Photo by Tim de Waele/Getty Images)

That group led the peloton by as much as eight minutes at one point before the Netherlands’ Taco van der Hoorn and several Spanish riders came to the front to reduce the gap.

With 77 km to go, the gap was down to under two minutes when fireworks began on the Mt. Pleasant climb both in the breakaway and the peloton. The pace of Battistella and O’Connor in the break split the leading group, while an injection of pace from France’s Quentin Pacher forced a decisive split in the peloton. The group of 25 that remained of the peloton over the top of the climb would include Evenepoel and it would be from this group that the Belgian would make his winning move.

The group of 25 swept up the breakaway the next time up Mt. Pleasant, with 60 km remaining, putting Evenepoel in an ideal position as the peloton behind slowly drifted further off the pace.

Evenepoel attacked hard with 35 km to go, just outside two laps to go, with Lutsenko the only rider able to go with him. And then, on the penultimate ascent of the Mt. Pleasant climb, Evenepoel rode Lutsenko off his wheel and continued on solo.

“When you’re in [a group of] two, you just want to work as much as long as possible,” Evenepoel said. “But I felt quite quickly that I was stronger than Alexey, and I just wanted to go alone because there was no time to waste on a circuit like this.”

Behind Evenepoel, Lutsenko battled on through cramps alone before being caught by Lorenzo Rota (Italy), Matthias Skjelmose (Denmark), and Mauro Schmid (Switzerland) with just 4 km to go. The quartet looked set to sprint for the minor medals but then, inside the final kilometre, they were caught from behind by Pascal Eenkhoorn (Netherlands), Jan Tratnik (Slovenia), and finally the remnants of the peloton. It was from that peloton that Laporte and Matthews would surge for the minor medals.

Matthews’s bronze is his third minor medal in the elite Worlds road race, after taking bronze in 2017 and silver in 2015.

Evenepoel’s elite Worlds road race win comes four years after he won the junior men’s road race and time trial at the 2018 Worlds in Innsbruck. He skipped the U23 ranks and jumped straight to WorldTour in 2019 and has raced with Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl since.

At last year’s Worlds in Flanders, Evenepoel angered teammates by seemingly riding against team orders. A year on, in Wollongong, Evenepoel saw his win as well-deserved success for a more cohesive Belgian outfit.

“I think how we raced today was really like a team and as we said before, it doesn’t matter how, but we want to become world champion with the team,” he said. “It was Wout [van Aert]’s chance or my chance and my chance was to go from earlier on and Wout had to follow and sprint. I guess the early attack made it today. But yeah, I think we just deserve it. I think we really deserve it.”