KIGALI :A rare setback for Tadej Pogacar in Sunday’s individual time trial at the Cycling Road World Championships in Rwanda has served only to ramp up his determination to win the road race at the weekend.
The four-times Tour de France winner was chasing a time trial-road race double but was soundly beaten by Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel in the time trial at the start of the week-long championships in Kigali.
Pogacar was the second-last trialist to set off on the 40.6km course followed by Evenepoel, who passed the Slovenian with some 2km remaining and went on to take a third successive world title.
“When he caught me, I just said ‘wow’. Gaining two and a half minutes like that is really phenomenal. So hats off to Remco,” said Pogacar, who finished fourth.
“Of course, it’s not the best feeling when a cyclist catches you, but he is the best in this discipline. He dedicates a lot of time to it and I can only hope to get closer to him in the coming years.
“I wanted to ride much better and have a chance for the double crown this week, but unfortunately I didn’t find a rhythm. Maybe I missed a little training on the bike for the time trial due to my illness (last month).
“I still came here with high morale, but I should have had really top legs, which I didn’t have,” he added.
There is a week’s recovery before the road race on Sunday, which will bring down the curtain on the first championships in Africa.
The 267.5 km long course includes over 5,500m of climbing – the second-highest amount in Road World Championships history.
“This will be one of the most exhausting races of my career. At least that’s what I expect,” said defending champion Pogacar.
“In the time trial we were on the bike for an hour; next Sunday it will be well over six hours, six and a half hours of suffering with a lot of altitude. I trained well for something like this.”
(Writing by Mark Gleeson in Cape Town; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
