At age 22, the young Flemish cycling prodigyRemco Evenepoel, offers Belgium its first world title for ten years after having already become, two weeks ago at the Vuelta, the first Belgian to win a Grand Tour since 1978. Remco Evenepoel was crowned cycling world champion this Sunday in Wollongong (Australia) after a solo raid of more than thirty kilometers.
The Belgian moved ahead of Frenchman Christophe Laporte (2nd) and Australian Michael Matthews (3rd). Remco Evenepoel won alone 2’21” ahead of the first peloton set by Christophe Laporte, after 266.9 km of racing. He made the difference 35 kilometers from the finish by breaking out of a group of twenty-five riders who had taken control and were then about two minutes ahead of the peloton which included the main favorites, including Wout van Aert, Julian Alaphilippe and Tadej Pogacar.
Remco Evenepoel says to himself“I’m super happy. I dreamed of being world champion. A monument, a classic, a Grand Tour, the World Cup… I won everything this year, it’s incredible”. The Belgian also won Liège-Bastogne-Liège in the spring and the Classica San Sebastian this summer.
Frenchman Christophe Laporte silver medal
The French had animated the whole start of the race, they had three riders in the leading group (Bardet, Sivakov, Pacher), but they for their part did not manage to follow. Despite the trick, they saw their efforts rewarded with the silver medal from Christophe Laporte. The Varois becomes vice-world cycling championafter notably winning the 19th stage of the Tour de France last summer in Cahors. “When I crossed the line, I didn’t really know where I was. […]. We can be really satisfied. Everything was not perfect, but Remco was really the strongest today”insisted the rider of the Jumbo-Visma.
Remco Evenepoel succeeds Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe who had won the last two editions, but the Berrichon could not join the fight for the first places this time.
The race was also marked by the early abandonment of Mathieu van der Poel, one of the great favorites but who had no more strength after about thirty kilometers after being arrested by the police. He spent part of the night at the police station, accused of having pushed two teenage girls who were preventing him from sleeping, in the hallway of his hotel room.
In the table of medals by nation, Belgium now has 27 titles, ahead of Italy (19) and France (10).