UCI Road World Championships 2025

The road

At the start

The first Worlds on African soil

Kigali, and a road race the Worlds has never had: 273 kilometres of Rwandan hills at fifteen hundred metres of altitude, more than five thousand metres of climbing, the cobbled Mur de Kigali on lap after lap. Tadej Pogačar defends the rainbow jersey he won in Zurich. Remco Evenepoel, already crowned time trial champion on these roads, is the one rider with the engine to answer him.

How it was won

1. 1153 km to go

   The Kigali circuit bites

   Lap after lap the cobbled Mur de Kigali and the Côte de Kigali Golf grind the peloton down, and by halfway the race is already a war of attrition at altitude.

2. 2104 km to go

   Pogačar's long-range raid

   On Mont Kigali, with more than a hundred kilometres still to ride, the world champion simply leaves. Only Juan Ayuso and Isaac del Toro get across, and Ayuso is shed almost at once.

3. 366 km to go

   Del Toro lets go

   Sixty-six kilometres out, the Mexican finally cracks under the repeated accelerations. From here Pogačar rides the rest of the world championship on his own.

4. 443 km to go

   Evenepoel alone in pursuit

   One by one the chasers crack until only Remco Evenepoel is left, time-trialling in a doomed bid to claw back a minute and more on the climbs.

5. 515 km to go

   Over the Mur a final time

   Pogačar crests the cobbled Mur de Kigali with the rainbow jersey all but secured, the gap still stubbornly above a minute.

6. 6At the line

   The rainbow jersey

   Pogačar soloes into Kigali for the world title, Evenepoel in at +1:28 and Ben Healy completing an unlikely podium for Ireland.

The result