2022 World Cycling Championships: Evenepoel crowned world champion

Remco Evenepoel slapped his hands in front of his face, shook his head and rolled across the finish line celebrating after an impressive triumphant ride at the World Cycling Championships. Overshadowed from the scandal surrounding co-favourite Mathieu van der Poel the young Belgian star stormed to his first World Championship title Down Under.

Click through: All world champions of the 2022 World Cycling Championships

The 22-year-old professional cyclist won his second World Cup title just two weeks after his Vuelta success After 266.9 kilometres in Wollongong, Australia, he won the road race ahead of Frenchman Christophe Laporte and Australian Michael Matthews. The talent of the century is thus increasingly following in the footsteps of his legendary compatriot Eddy Merckx, who also won his first world championship title in 1967 at the age of 22.

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It was an impressive show by Evenepoel at the World Cycling Championships, taking over from Frenchman Julian Alaphilippe, who last triumphed in 2020 and 2021. With 72 kilometres to go, the exceptional Belgian rider broke away from the other favourites such as Tadej Pogacar (Slovenia), Matthews and Alaphilippe with a larger group.

Click through: All road world champions since 2000

With a further increase in pace two laps before the end, only the Kazakh Alexey Lutsenko was able to follow, but with 26 kilometres to go he was unable to do anything against the Belgian. As expected, the German riders played no role.

Van der Poel arrested

However, van der Poel, who had caused a scandal on the previous evening and had been in the lead for some time, caused the biggest upset of the World Cycling Championships. was arrested for an assault in the hotel. There had been an altercation with two children who had knocked on his door several times. A girl's arm was reportedly injured. The 27-year-old was charged with two counts of assault and was released on bail early on Sunday morning. Van der Poel has to appear in court on Tuesday. The former cross world champion started the road race, but gave up after just over an hour.

"It's true, yes. There was a small argument," van der Poel told the Belgian TV channel Sporza before the start. "It was about noisy neighbours and they're pretty strict here." He went to bed early. However, many children in the corridor of his room had found it necessary to knock on the door. "After a few times, I was done with it. I didn't ask nicely to stop. Then the police were called. I wasn't back in my room until 4 o'clock. That's certainly not ideal. It's a disaster, but there's nothing I can do about it." Above all, van der Poel was no longer a competitor of Evenepoel.

Evenepoel with phenomenal development

Evenepoel is already being hailed as the new Eddy Merckx in his home country. And his development is astounding. In 2016, he was still a junior international for Belgian football record champions RSC Anderlecht, and at the age of 16 he also ran the Brussels half marathon in 1:16:15 before the boy from Schepdaal discovered his love for cycling. Just two years later, Evenepoel, whose father Patrick was also a professional cyclist for several years, was already double world junior champion. His start in the professional ranks was just as furious with silver in the time trial at the 2019 World Cycling Championships, before a serious crash at the 2020 Tour of Lombardy forced him to take a nine-month break with a broken pelvis.

German drivers have no chance

The German riders had no chance in the World Cycling Championship race. Georg Zimmermann, who was thought to be the most likely to finish among the front runners, fell 74 kilometres from the finish. This meant no medal for the German Cycling Federation in the elite races. On Saturday Liane Lippert finished fourth in the women's race despite a strong performance. narrowly missed out on a podium place when Annemiek van Vleuten from the Netherlands won. The 24-year-old from Friedrichshafen had also won the Mixed team time trial with the German team in fourth place occupied.