Pogacar wins 2025 UCI World Road Cycling Championships in Rwanda
Tadej Pogacar secured his second straight UCI World Road Race Championship title on Sunday in Kigali, producing a dominant solo ride that will be remembered as one of the sport’s most remarkable performances
The four-time Tour de France champion launched a decisive long-range attack and crossed the line 1 minute 29 seconds ahead of the chasing group, confirming his place as the world’s preeminent rider.
Pogacar first surged away with 104 km remaining, briefly forming a two-man break with Mexico’s rising star Isaac del Toro before dropping him with 67 km to go. From there he controlled the race alone on what many described as the toughest World Championships course to date, hanging on through brutal climbs and relentless technical descents to take the rainbow jersey in emphatic fashion. The win in Kigali makes Pogacar the first rider ever to win both the Tour de France and the World Championship in consecutive years twice, adding to a career that already includes a rare Triple Crown of the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and world title in 2024.
Remco Evenepoel of Belgium took silver after a strong ride, adding to his time trial victory from the previous weekend, while Ben Healy earned bronze — Ireland’s first world road race medal since Sean Kelly in 1989 — capping a breakthrough season for the Irish rider. The podium underscored the global depth of talent on show and the dramatic nature of a race that favored audacity and resilience.
“For sure, I doubted at times,” Pogacar said after the race. “The climbs were getting harder and harder every lap, and on the downhills you still had to pedal quite a lot, so the energy resources were going towards the end. It was so hard, the final laps. You doubt a bit but you have to push through and hope for the best.” His words reflected the physical and mental toll of a nearly 70 km solo effort on an unforgiving circuit.
Only 30 riders out of the original 165 finished the hugely attritional race, which featured just under 5,500m of elevation gain - the first time this century that a World Championships course has included more than 5,000m of climbing - in 267.5km.
But Pogacar rose to the challenge as always. His decisive move came on the only climb of Mont Kigali, with 104km still left to race - similar to his crucial attack on the World Championships circuit last year in Zurich, which came with 100km remaining.
Pogacar did not make his usual explosive attack to immediately distance his rivals, but slowly wound up the pace to stretch the peloton out, with only a select group managing to go with him as he powered up the upper slopes still in the saddle.
Only Pogacar’s trade teammate - for now - Juan Ayuso was able to cope with the acceleration, as the pair caught lone breakaway survivor Julian Bernard near the top and were the first riders onto the descent.
Spain’s Ayuso briefly distanced the Slovenian on the descent, but the dynamic changed again as young Mexican del Toro - another rider for the UAE Team Emirates-XRG super-squad - bridged across to form a trio.
With 67km to go Pogacar finally went solo, accelerating once more to drop del Toro. While the Mexican went backwards a thinned-down chase group eventually formed, with Evenepoel recovering from his earlier struggles and an ill-timed mechanical to chase back onto the peloton, before breaking clear with a few elite companions.
Despite their best efforts the gap remained over a minute, and Evenepoel - clearly the strongest of the group - decided to make certain a medal with 20km to go, dropping Healy and Skjelmose with ease. Healy in turn left Skjelmose behind in the final few kilometres to come home solo for the final remaining medal.
Explaining his long-range attack, Pogacar said: “I think the parcours was designed for this, I was hoping a small group would form like we did with Juan and del Toro. Perfect combo, I was like, this is dreams, no? To ride as far as possible as a trio. But Juan had a problem quite soon on the cobbles and del Toro had some stomach problems I think, so I was left alone quite early and solo like last year, fighting with myself! But I’m so happy I made it.”
VIDEO: 2025 Elite Men's UCI Road World Championships
2025 Elite Men's UCI Road World Championships Top 10
01 Pogacar Tadej Slovenia 06:21:20
02 Evenepoel Remco Belgium + 01:28
03 Healy Ben Ireland + 02:16
04 Skjelmose Mattias Denmark + 02:53
05 Skujins Toms Latvia + 06:41
06 Ciccone Giulio Italy + 06:47
07 del Toro Isaac Mexico + 06:47
08 Ayuso Juan Spain + 06:47
09 Eulalio Afonso Portugal + 07:06
10 Pidcock Tom Great Britain + 09:05
