Tadej Pogačar defended his world road race title in Kigali with a solo attack of 66 kilometres, winning by 1:28 on a course where only 30 of 165 starters reached the finish.
A mountain launch, then a clean split
The decisive move ignited on Mont Kigali with 104 kilometres remaining. Pogačar accelerated, taking teammates Isaac del Toro and Juan Ayuso with him, and soon dropped Ayuso on the Mur de Kigali.
Del Toro clung on until the 66-kilometre mark, then lost contact. From there the Slovenian pressed into a long, solitary ride that never looked fragile.
A course that devoured the field
The Kigali circuit packed 5,475 metres of climbing into 267.5 kilometres, yet Pogačar still averaged over 42 kph. Only Remco Evenepoel finished within two minutes of him; the gap to tenth-placed Tom Pidcock exceeded nine minutes.
Evenepoel overcame repeated mechanical problems and soloed away in the final 20 kilometres to take silver. Ben Healy won bronze after dropping Mattias Skjelmose on the final ascent of the Côte de Kigali.
Back-to-back rainbows, a historic double
The victory made Pogačar the first man to win the Tour de France and the world road title in two successive seasons. A year earlier in Zurich he had attacked with 100 kilometres to go and faded late; this time there was no hint of weakness on the closing laps.
"It was my big goal of the season to defend the jersey," Pogačar told reporters afterwards. Days after turning 27, he now holds 105 career victories and a sequence of solo feats that increasingly sets him apart.
