{"id":159726,"date":"2025-09-21T17:57:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-21T17:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/159726\/"},"modified":"2025-09-21T17:57:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-21T17:57:08","slug":"its-a-hard-one-to-swallow-tadej-pogacar-caught-by-remco-evenepoel-and-finishes-one-second-off-the-time-trial-podium-in-kigali","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/159726\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s a hard one to swallow’ – Tadej Poga\u010dar caught by Remco Evenepoel and finishes one-second off the time trial podium in Kigali"},"content":{"rendered":"

It was an unexpected and heavy blow for Slovenia’s Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a>, who struggled through the elite men’s individual time trial and was caught on the final climb by three-time winner from Belgium Remco Evenepoel<\/a> on Sunday in Kigali, Rwanda.<\/p>\n

All eyes were on the rivalry between the two powerful riders ahead of this event, but it was Poga\u010dar who appeared to suffer through the opening checkpoints, losing time to Evenepoel and his other competitors at each mark of the challenging parcours that finished at the Kigali Convention Centre.<\/p>\n

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Poga\u010dar started the time trial two and a half minutes ahead of Evenepoel, but lost time to the Belgian at the checkpoints, indicating early on that he was not having his best performance.<\/p>\n

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Evenepoel, who was on an exceptional ride, had Poga\u010dar insight on the flatter sections before the last climb, and caught and passed him along the final cobbled ascent of the C\u00f4te de Kimihurura with roughly one kilometre remaining, and while he tried to stay with the Belgian, he eventually lost ground and ended up finishing 2:37 back in fourth place.<\/p>\n

“For sure, it was a hard one to swallow, but he’s Remco, and he is so good in this discipline. I hope that he prepared 100% for this discipline today and that he will be 99% ready for next Sunday,” Poga\u010dar said.<\/p>\n

“Of course, I am disappointed that Remco caught me, but it is incredible how good he is in this discipline. Chapeau for all the ride by him. “<\/p>\n

Jay Vine of Australia finished in second place with the silver medal at 1:14, and Ilan van Wilder from Belgium finished in third place, securing the bronze at 3:36 back.<\/p>\n

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“I saw that I was just one second from the podium, and that is bittersweet. If I knew that I was only one second off, in the last kilometre, maybe I would have a bit of extra motivation, but I didn’t know, and today I will probably regret it. Tomorrow is a new day, and I can be happy with how I suffered today,” Poga\u010dar said.<\/p>\n

It was also Poga\u010dar’s 27th birthday, and so not the gift he would have been hoping for, on that, he said, “This year, I don’t want to spoil myself to win today, so let’s try to win on Sunday.”<\/p>\n

The elite men raced in the afternoon following the elite women’s individual time trial, won by Switzerland’s Marlen Reusser.<\/p>\n

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The men’s field took on a 40.6km course, at 1,450 metres of altitude, that included four climbs; twice over the C\u00f4te de Nyanza with 2.5km at 5.8% on the way out and 4.1km at 3.1% on the way back toward the finish. They had another climb over the C\u00f4te de Peage and then the last climb of the cobbled C\u00f4te de Kimihurura, which is 1.3km at 6.3% and will also be used on the city circuits during the road races later in the week.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar looked immediately to be off the pace, down on his trade teammate Isaac Del Toro at the first time check, while Evenepoel swung the other way, taking 44 seconds off the Mexican\u2019s best time at that point.<\/p>\n

Things didn\u2019t get better after that. At the second time check, Poga\u010dar shipped more time, dropping over 25 seconds to another trade teammate, Vine, who was putting down an impressive negative split to ride arguably the best time trial of his career.<\/p>\n

By the time the third intermediate time check arrived the result that Poga\u010dar desired had already slipped out of his grip, but the worst was yet to come for the ebullient Slovenian, who was able to beat Evenepoel in the stage 12 time trial at the Tour de France, though it later transpired the Soudal-QuickStep man was suffering from illness (he withdraw on stage 14).<\/p>\n

The image of Evenepoel catching and passing the four-time Tour de France winner not on the flat, as might have been expected, given the relative strengths of the two riders by comparison, but on the cobble C\u00f4te de Kimihurura climb, was startling and unexpected, and came to define the day, in which Evenepoel delivered on expectation, while Poga\u010dar fell spectacularly short.<\/p>\n

He looked uncomfortable on the bike and laboured to an eventual fourth place, just outside the medals.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar suggested that his time trial performance was lacking because of his decision to travel to Canada to race the double WorldTour events in Quebec and Montreal, where he finished second. He said that while racing there lent well to his preparation for the elite men’s road race in Kigali, he also missed an important block of time trial training.<\/p>\n

“If we speak in circumstances for the TT, I would have definitely needed to skip Canada, but after I got sick before Canada, and my focus was … not that I gave up on the TT, but I had to skip a few important training [sessions] on the TT bike. For the road bike, it was not a question that I can perform well. I knew that if I wanted to be 100% for the road race, I had to go to Canada. I think Canada was a good conditioning for the road race.”<\/p>\n

He faced a thorough questioning by the media post-race and spoke with his usual brand of good humour, but it was clear that despite today\u2019s perceived setback, Poga\u010dar\u2019s sights are set on next Sunday\u2019s road race, where he will line up as the defending champion.<\/p>\n

“It’s really nice parcours and I wanted to have really good legs to have a really good position as well, because the downhills were very important today, the high speed sections and really fast roads. We are at altitude, which really plays the effects, too. It was really fast but also an elevation to do on the course,” Poga\u010dar said.<\/p>\n

“I’ve been enjoying the last few days here, training and racing, and I’m looking forward to the road race. Now I need to do two more hard training and then I will be ready for Sunday.”<\/p>\n

\n

\"Tadej\n<\/p>\n

Tadej Poga\u010dar racing in the elite men’s time trial at the Rwanda Worlds in Kigali (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was an unexpected and heavy blow for Slovenia’s Tadej Poga\u010dar, who struggled through the elite men’s individual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159727,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82],"class_list":["post-159726","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159726","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=159726"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159726\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159727"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159726"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159726"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159726"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}