Slovenian Tadej Pogačar became the champion on Sunday, who spent the last 100 kilometers in a solo breakaway. The Australian Ben O’Connor won the silver, while the third was the Dutchman Mathieu van der Pool, who beat Skujini in the sprint.
Among the other members of the Latvian national team, Krists Neilands ranked 71st, while Emīls Liepiņš and Alekss Krasts did not finish.
In the World Championship, the cyclists covered 273.9 kilometers in the canton of Zurich, the last 200 of which had to be completed in circles around the city of Zurich, each of which had to overcome two steep climbs.
Most of the distance was spent in front by athletes who were not expected to fight for a high-value result, but about 100 kilometers before the finish, Pogachar left the peloton in a breakaway, who was later joined by French representative Pavel Sivakov.
There were several attack attempts in the peloton and they were also led by Skujinš, who joined the British Oscar Onley and the Irishman Ben Healy about 60 kilometers before the finish, forming a trio that was 40 seconds behind the leading duo. As the leading groups split, about 50 kilometers ahead of the finish line, only Pogačar remained, followed by the duo of Skujiņa and Hīlija.
For a long time, there was a difference of about one minute between Pogachar and the following duo. On the last climb, Pogačar’s advantage over the closest followers began to shrink a little, which later merged into a group of seven cyclists – it included van der Pool, Belgian Remko Evenepool, Spanish Enrique Mass, O’Connor, Swiss Mark Hirschi and Healy, in addition to Skujin.
At one point, the leader and the following group were separated by less than 40 seconds. Nine kilometers before the finish line, Skujiņš, together with van der Pool and Hirsi, tried to break away from the rest of the group members, but quickly returned to the same group with the rest of the quartet.
The winner of this year’s Giro d’Italia and Tour de France, Pogachar, however, stayed ahead and added a gold medal in the world championship as well, finishing in six hours, 27 minutes and 30 seconds. Less than one and a half kilometers before the finish, O’Connor left the followers, losing 34 seconds to Pogachar.
The rest of the athletes entered the fight for the bronze medal. In the final straight, only van der Pool was able to respond to Skujina’s attack, who nevertheless overtook the Latvian, this duo together with Evenepool and Hirshi losing 58 seconds to the champion.
Independent Latvia’s all-time best result in the world championships in road cycling is the gold medal won by Roman Vainštein in the 2000 master race group race.
2024-10-02 00:29:28