Montreal (Canada) (AFP) – Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel etched his name into the history books with a dominant fourth successive world time-trial victory in Montreal on Sunday. The 26-year-old Belgian came into the race as the overwhelming favourite and he did not disappoint. Evenepoel was already more than half a minute ahead of the rest by the second intermediate time-check just over halfway through the race. By the finish, the Belgian had put almost a minute into second-placed Filippo Ganna, with Paul Seixas taking third another 15 seconds back. Evenepoel became the first man to win the time-trial world title four times in a row, while also equalling the record number of overall titles held by German Tony Martin and Swiss Fabian Cancellara.
“It’s amazing. It was obviously the goal to come and win here for the fourth time in a row. It was a big motivation,” said Evenepoel. “I’m super happy. It was a wonderful experience.” Already the Olympic champion in both this discipline and the road race, Evenepoel has not lost a time-trial since the 2025 Tour de France. He has enjoyed his best season to date, winning the Amstel Gold Race, Clasica San Sebastian, and Grand Prix de Quebec, as well as finishing second behind Tadej Pogacar at the Tour de France. His next objective will be to win a second road-race world title next Sunday and become the first man to do the double in the same year. “There’s quite some time to rest now and enjoy this special course,” he said. “Full focus on Sunday from Tuesday.”
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Ganna had started slowly and was only 10th at the first time-check, but by the third, he had moved up into second spot. However, he could not make any headway into Evenepoel, who did not stop increasing his lead from the start to the finish. Young Swede Jakob Soderqvist, the under-23 champion in this discipline last year, was second to Evenepoel at the first two time-checks but faded over the last 10km and finished fifth. Teenage French starlet Seixas gauged his effort better and put in a strong ride over the final 10km to finish third.
In the women’s race, Swiss Marlen Reusser retained her world time-trial title as her main rival Demi Vollering finished a disappointing eighth. Time-trial queen Reusser celebrated her 35th birthday with an ultimately comfortable victory, but not before Briton Zoe Backstedt gave her a scare. Backstedt had been quickest at the first two intermediate time-checks on the 39.2km course, but Reusser powered away in the second half to beat the 21-year-old by 40 seconds, with German Franziska Koch finishing third, a further six seconds back.
Double world champion Reusser has been virtually unbeatable in races against the clock in the last few years. She is a four-time European champion and has won time-trial stages at the Tour de France Femmes and Giro d’Italia Women. It was a long time-trial for a women’s race, where they are usually closer to 20km. “Apparently I coped well, but it made me really nervous,” said Reusser. “I was really nervous and I was not really sure because we don’t have time trials like this often. I’m used to 20km and we had huge discussions with the team, with performance coaches, like ‘what is good pacing?'” Until an hour ago, I was not 100 percent sure, and also on the course, I was not 100 percent sure.”
Backstedt had been a junior and twice under-23 world champion in the discipline, but this race was around 12km further than any previous time-trial she had competed in. Koch’s bronze medal continued a dream season for the German, who won Paris-Roubaix in April. Vollering, the European road race champion, was never in the running for a medal.
© 2024 AFP
