UCI road world championships<\/a>, aiming to add a second rainbow jersey just days after winning the road race.<\/p>\nStanding in his way is Remco Evenepoel, who has absolutely Pwned the discipline in recent years. The Belgian is chasing a third consecutive world title after winning in Scotland in 2023 and Zurich, Switzerland, in 2024. He also won the Olympics in both the road race and time trial. He has one of the best positions on the bike \u2014 small, compact and aero. Add in those mega watts and you can see why he dominates the discipline.<\/p>\n
But this year, the 40.6-km course winds through Kigali\u2019s hills and could suit Poga\u010dar\u2019s climbing power.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s 680 m of climbing \u2014 a far hillier test than most world champs courses. Riders roll out from the BK Arena, East Africa\u2019s largest indoor stadium, on a flat eight-km opener before hitting the C\u00f4te de Nyanza, a 2.5-kilometre ascent averaging 5.8 per cent.<\/p>\n
After a fast drop, they tackle the same ridge from the opposite side: a longer 6.6-kilometre drag at 3.5 per cent. Both climbs double as timing checkpoints. A sweeping seven-km descent then leads into the C\u00f4te de P\u00e9age. It\u2019s a sharp two-kilometre rise at 6.0 per cent.<\/p>\n
The final sting is the C\u00f4te de Kimihurura \u2014 1.3 kilometres at 6.3 per cent over rough local cobblestones. Even the last kilometre kicks up at four per cent before riders reach the finish at the Kigali Convention Centre.<\/p>\n
The course is so hilly that regular TT specialists Filippo Ganna are giving a big no grazie to it.<\/p>\n
But still, Evenepoel is no slouch up climbs. He\u2019s podiumed at the Tour and can hold his own (for the most part) on the big climbs.<\/p>\n
As Velon pointed out, Poga\u010dar\u2019s record against Evenepoel is much better when there is elevation. Granted, at the Tour de France this year it was essentially a hill-climb TT.<\/p>\n
Pogi has never won the world championship TT, but it would be very convenient sartorially if he did. This is presuming he wins the road race too.<\/p>\n
According to his teammates, when Poga\u010dar is doing a double workout where he may switch from his road bike to TT bike, he always puts on another jersey<\/a> over the rainbow \u2014 as a gesture to Evenepoel, who is the reigning champ. This would be a lot easier for him if he can just wear the same kit all the time. (Although these days he tries to wear other kit to avoid people harassing him.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar has taken claimed cycling\u2019s most coveted jersey in style\u2014 and now he wants another. And to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":151537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[52521,49,48,635,5901,82,1422],"class_list":["post-151536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-2025-uci-road-worlds","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=151536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/151536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/151537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=151536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=151536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}