LIVE 2026 European Cycling Championships - Men's Elite Road Race | Evenepoel and the other favourites are on the local circuit

The European Championships for elite men officially kicked off on Sunday at 12:49 p.m., with a 196.3-kilometer course. The race began in the capital, Ljubljana, and the first 90 kilometers were expected to remain fairly flat, leading to the local circuit around Šenčur, which the riders would reach after cycling nearly 80 kilometers. The first two hours of the race were therefore truly the time for the breakaway.

Jochem Kerckhaert opened the race for the Netherlands with an attack, and he was joined by some surprisingly strong riders. Luka Mezgec, who was riding his final race of his career for Slovenia, Fabian Weiss (Switzerland), Tiago Antunes (Portugal), Josef Cerny (Czech Republic), and Jakob Söderqvist (Sweden) joined Kerckhaert, and together they pulled away from the peloton by a good minute.

Belgium had the day’s favorite, Remco Evenepoel, on the team, so the light blue jerseys took the lead of the peloton. Surprisingly, they received help from a Serbian rider. The Serbs were forced to work hard because they had missed the early breakaway. The five-rider lead group managed to build up a bit more of a lead, but the gap remained well under 2 minutes and was therefore still manageable.

Wout Poels, the Dutch team leader, was involved in a hard crash just over 150 kilometers from the finish. However, everyone was able to continue. So it was a matter of waiting until the breakaway group and the peloton reached the local circuit and were about to begin the climb up the Mozjanca, which, at 2.1 kilometers with an average gradient of 10 percent, was the highlight of the day. It had to be climbed five times.

Ayuso dropped early, Italy sets the pace

The first of five climbs was not enough to prompt the peloton to step up the pace. From the early breakaway, Weiss, Antunes and Kerckhaert remained, with the Belgians maintaining control and not wanting to burn themselves out just yet. Italy, however, decided to do just that on the second ascent of Mozjanca. Italy’s climbing team stood to gain from an exhausting race, so they stepped up the pace.

After Kerckhaert, the last rider from the breakaway, was reeled in, the Italians quickly thinned out the peloton, with Spain’s Juan Ayuso the main casualty. Jan Christen had briefly gone on the offensive for Switzerland, but when Belgium regained control over the summit, he allowed himself to be reeled in. The peloton had been significantly thinned out, but it thickened up again somewhat on the descent and in the section that followed.