
An unreal performance by Remco Evenepoel along the 40.6 kilometers of the men's elite time trial at the Kigali World Championships secured the Belgian his third consecutive world title in the discipline. Setting an unsustainable pace from the start for anyone, the future Red Bull BORA-hansgrohe rider crafted an unmatched performance, inflicting senseless time gaps on all competitors from the first time checks.
In the end, closing in 49:46.03 at an average of 48.948 km/h, Evenepoel won by 1'14" over Jay Vine (Australia) and 2'36" over his compatriot and teammate Ilan Van Wilder, securing a victory that launches him even further into the pantheon of time trial specialists. Fourth place for a rather disappointing Tadej Pogacar who, after challenging the Belgian on the eve of the race, ended up with a final gap of 2'37" from the native of Aalst (losing the podium by 1 second) and was even caught by his rival with two kilometers to go, a sign of a far from brilliant day.
Fifth place went to another rider with high expectations, Isaac Del Toro: after starting very strongly, the Mexican faded in the central part of the race before recovering with a burst on the final climb to secure a top 5 finish ahead of a surprising Andreas Leknessund, sixth just 21 seconds off the podium.
Behind the Norwegian from Uno-X-Mobility, Luke Plapp (Australia), Bruno Armirail (France), Thymen Arensman (Netherlands) and Stefan Kung (Switzerland) completed the top ten, while the two Italians Matteo Sobrero and Mattia Cattaneo, finishing their rides in 53'45" and 53'56" respectively, did not go beyond the thirteenth and fifteenth final positions.
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