Dutchman Mathieu van der Poel was crowned road cycling world champion by winning alone after a daunting race on Sunday on the Glasgow street circuit.
The grandson of Raymond Poulidor, the first Dutch world champion since Joop Zoetemelk in 1985, won despite a fall on a rain-soaked road, when he flew alone 22 kilometers from the finish. .
Sliding in a bend about 16 km from the goal, he was able to remobilize to continue to extend, with a damaged shoe and a torn combination, his lead over a trio of royal pursuers, made up of Belgian Wout Van Aert, second as in 2020 1 min 37 sec behind the winner, Slovenian Tadej Pogacar, third, and Dane Mads Pedersen.
At 28, Van der Poel, who was able to savor his triumph for a long time by holding his head in his hands, succeeds the former wearer of the rainbow jersey, the Belgian Remco Evenepeol, who failed to follow the best on Sunday.
Winner of Milan-SanRemo and Paris-Roubaix this year, Van der Poel, already five times world cyclo-cross champion, confirms with this victory that he is the best one-day racer of the moment.
Fighter and acrobat at the same time, he imposed his power and his science of piloting which worked wonders on a labyrinthine circuit of 14.3 km with 48 bends to be covered ten times, forcing the vast majority of the peloton to retire, under sometimes heavy rain.
Van der Poel’s victory comes a year after his retirement after 30 km at the 2022 Worlds in Australia after spending the night at the station following an altercation with two teenage girls in his hotel.
He will also aim for world gold next Saturday in mountain biking during these “Super Worlds” in Scotland.
Unlike the past three years, France left without a medal.
The Blues have never managed to weigh on the race. Their designated leader Christophe Laporte, vice-world champion in title, was delayed by a mechanical problem at the worst moment when Belgians and Danes forced the pace in the lead, a hundred kilometers from the finish.
He gave up a few laps later with Julian Alaphilippe, double world champion in 2020 and 2021.
