Pogacar cracks Evenepoel with 75 km to go and wins European Championship after long solo; Evenepoel and Seixas take second and third place
CyclingSunday, 05 October 2025 at 17:40
Tadej Pogacar has become the new European road cycling champion. The Slovenian once again pulled off a long solo, following up on his recent world title win. Remco Evenepoel was the last rider to keep up with Pogacar, but ended up in second place. Jonas Vingegaard was quickly left behind.
Under a crisp morning sun, the men passed through the mixed zone in Privas. Ambitions? Pogacar still had some energy left in the tank for this final week of racing. Evenepoel and Belgium announced they would race "atypically" on a "stunning and difficult course," and Vingegaard predicted a "man-to-man battle" with the strongest riders. With Mattias Skjelmose as an essential wild card for the Danes.
France brought Paul Seixas and Romain Grégoire to the race, Spain counted on Juan Ayuso ("if you want to win, you have to follow Pogacar"), and the Netherlands? On Friday, they predicted to IDLProCycling.com that it would be a fast race. And so it was. In a lightning-fast opening hour, with climbs from the start over the Col du Moulin à Vent, Daan Hoole, Mathijs Paasschens, and Czech Mathias Vacek were in the lead.
After 47.5 kilometers of racing, we arrived at a furious pace at the foot of the Côte de Saint-Romain-de-Lerps, the much-discussed climb of this European Championship, with 7.1 kilometers at an average gradient of 7 percent. With the Côte de Val d'Enfer (1.6 kilometers at 9.7 percent) in between, action was already expected here. And that action initially came from more attacks from the second row.
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Grégoire crashes, Vingegaard gets dropped on the second Saint Romain de Lerps
Interesting names, such as Louis Vervaeke (Belgium), Nicolas Prodhomme (France), and Marco Frigo (Italy), tried to catch up in a sizable group. The peloton conceded only a minute and a half on the first Saint-Romain-de-Lerps. Slovenia controlled the race for Pogacar, but it was by no means a fast pace. The two groups at the front came over the top together with 14.
After one big loop, Pogacar still had five helpers from Slovenia. And they were required, because the world champion was often seen at the back due to toilet breaks and such. No stress at all for the big favorite. How different that was for French hope Grégoire, who suddenly found himself on the side of the road during the descent of the long climb. He did return after his crash.
And that was a good thing, because in addition to Slovenia, Belgium also wanted to pick up the pace on the second time up Saint Romain de Lerps. And who paid the price with just over 100 kilometers to go? Jonas Vingegaard! The Dane, who excels in Grand Tours and stage races, once again lacked the legs for his always-feared one-day races.
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Evenepoel and Pogacar already separated before the final long loop at the European Championships
Vingegaard did return to the pack for a moment when the Belgians temporarily put their attacking spirit on hold. However, the French were also eager for battle. Pavel Sivakov stood on his pedals, followed by Pogacar and Evenepoel. Everything on the third and final time up Saint Romain de Lerps? No way! Evenepoel had plans and went first on the descent and then on the steep Val d'Enfer.
Pogacar responded to everything, but so did Seixas. The three briefly caught up with the early breakaway riders, including Vervaeke. The other favorites—minus Vingegaard and João Almeida—joined them at the start of the third big loop. Twenty-eight riders remained, with 85.7 (!) kilometers to go and Slovakian Martin Svrček leading Soudal-Quick Step teammate Evenepoel.
On the third and final climb of Saint Romain de Lerps, the race went into a higher gear, as expected. This time, it was Pogacar who attacked and Evenepoel who responded. For a moment, it looked like we were going to get a man-to-man battle, but unfortunately... Evenepoel dropped back under the scorching pace of the world champion, who was ready for a solo ride of no less than 75 kilometers.
Pogacar off on another long solo ride, Evenepoel with strong chasers
Evenepoel had clearly run out of steam for a moment, but as so often, he got it going again. About twenty seconds behind Pogacar, he took his responsibility. Seixas, Juan Ayuso, and the strong Italian Christian Scaroni found his wheel. That left us with five men in the fight for three medals, with four more Val d'Enfer climbs (spread over 3.5 laps) ahead of them.
Towards the final hour of the race, the four fell behind: the gap with Pogacar increased to over a minute. This was partly due to the many changes in pace. Evenepoel, in particular, tried to shake off the three riders, after which things quietened down. Pogacar, on the other hand, continued to race at a steady pace and therefore had no controlled chase behind him.
With 38 kilometers to go, Evenepoel finally broke away, leaving his three fellow chasers behind on the final climb. This allowed the Flemish rider to continue his solo pursuit of Pogacar. He managed to reduce the gap slightly, but Pogacar also got the signal to accelerate. The difference between the two remained above a minute.
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Evenepoel closes the gap slightly
With 26 kilometers to go, Evenepoel's deficit fell below a minute again. Still, the Olympic champion was unable to close the gap any further: Pogacar maintained a lead of around a minute. In the meantime, the three riders behind Evenepoel worked well together, although the trio was already facing a deficit of almost two and a half minutes to Pogacar.
That gap would only grow, reaching four minutes. Pogacar's dominance (and Evenepoel's one-minute gap) was particularly evident in the number of riders still in the race on the final lap: there were only seventeen (!). Pogacar was unaware of this and rode solo to a new title.
In the battle for the bronze medal, Ayuso was the first to reach his limit. Seixas and Scaroni fought it out on the final climb, where Seixas seemed to have the upper hand. However, the Frenchman was unable to shake off the Italian, but in the end, the young talent managed to pull away from the 27-year-old Scaroni. Meanwhile, Pogacar was already celebrating his victory.
Check out the results below the video!
Results European cycling championship 2025 - elite men
Results powered by FirstCycling.com
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Latest Comments
- What the data doesn't show is how much of an effect drafting had for evenepoel. Pogacar went with del toro at 100km whilst Evenepoel was still in the bunch. Despite the bike changes he still had a lot of assistance getting back to the bunch. Pogacar then rode 60km solo whilst evenepoel rode with Healy/Skjelmose until going solo in thd last 10-15km. Thats ~20% less power / energy requirements for 45-50km. Apples and oranges...kevpt30-09-2025
- 👏👏Bea24-09-2025
- Agreed! As we all know now, Juan Ayuso will be on another team. But it was sweet to see him win the stages at La Vuelta. I do love the drama of cycling admittedly but its clear to see the talent of winners of stages in a Grand Tourryhw2814fq921-09-2025
- Pogacar has no competition he has won everything, I cant imagine even being him in that position!! Crazy. I am sure he has some back up plan for how he wants to spend his retirement years at age 30 onward. Does he like beer? Plenty of innovation in brewing. And you don't have to be super social. Chapeau/Cheers whatever you like Tadej you will do.ryhw2814fq921-09-2025
- Plus its confirmed that the Philadelphia Cycling Classic up the Manayunk Wall is back for 2026! hooray for thatryhw2814fq918-09-2025
- This is a dumb question but still why doesn't the UCI consider a grand tour in the USA in the future. We have the desolate/scary back roads in Pennsylvania and Virginia, just like in France with loads of rural land and hills. Plus the Rocky Mountains in Colorado and the Cascade/Olympic Mountains in Washington State. I'm sure it'll never happen but honestly people in PA/NJ/NY/VT/NH would love it. We are already sports fans, what is another sport to learn. I am forever optimistic about cycling in the US.ryhw2814fq918-09-2025
- Zonneveld makes some excellent points.The sponsorship model is broken and companies like Verizon who have multi billion dollar with a B ad budgets need to be involved again.
Brucegel17-09-2025 - Roger Vlaeminck says Mads is not a good rider? Where is the headline saying you don't even have to be a good rider to win the World Road Championship says Roger Vlaeminck, who never won it!!? Perhaps his aging mind needs to think about what the heck he's saying.packfiller7103-09-2025
- Wow, there is so much criticism of the UAE XRG riders. Why so much criticism is being leveled solely at the riders is baffling. The UAE XRG management deserves a good amount of the criticism aimed at the team, as a whole. They have not managed the talent they have at all. They failed miserably to properly handle young Isaac del Toro on that penultimate day of the Giro. And they have not handled Juan Ayuso well either. If they didn't have Tadej Pogacar in their roster, we might not be talking about them as winners, at all. So many think that Ayuso has shown that he is not a "team" player at all. Does anybody think that he might be thinking about his own future at this point? That he might want to feel like the team has his back, when they load the pressure onto him? And Joao is not a team leader. That burden might be laid on him by the management, but they need to properly support that assignment, not make it a contentious situation, within the team. And then how management has conducted themselves throughout this parting of ways between themselves and Ayuso has been totally indiscreet. And yet people want to pile onto Ayuso when he tells the truth about the manner that this is all soap opera is developing. He wants out. He shouldn't be getting so much negative criticism for that. It's a situation that has soured. Yes he has a contract, but he is not the first, nor will he be the last that wants to get out of a relationship that just isn't working anymore. And DeCauwer seems to have very vague reasons for criticizing Almeida. He does realize that Jonas is the second best Grand Tour rider of this current generation, so it should be no shame that Joao is behind him in the standings. Riders are giving their all in an extremely difficult sport that stretches them, often beyond their limits. Now many are wanting to send them to Behavioral School as well? The criticism ought to mellow out, or it ought to simply be ignored, as nothing more than blah, blah, blah, not worth the headlines it gets
reemmo002-09-2025 - In 5yrs, Pogi will be a top Twitch streamer living on baked goods while Urska is still racing.Veganpotter11-08-2025
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