Just because the unrelenting series of brutal climbs and tortuous terrain was ideally suited to Ben Healy didn’t make his task any easier. Turned out that everything that was feared about the World Cycling Championships road race in Kigali proved true.
By the end of the 267km race around the high-altitude landscape of Rwanda’s capital city, Healy’s magnificent effort to win the bronze medal called on every last bit of his physical and tactical reserves.
Rwanda isn’t known as the Land of a Thousand Hills for nothing, Sunday’s race taking in 5,475m of climbing in all. It resulted in some of the largest ever gaps among the top-10 finishers, with only 30 of the 185 starters making it to the end.
Throw oppressive heat thrown into the mix, and Healy produced arguably the best ride of his career to date – even after wearing the yellow jersey for two days in the Tour de France back in July, having also won stage six. “This season is getting crazier and crazier, it’s pretty special,” he said afterwards.
READ MORE
Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar defended his title and collected another rainbow jersey in his trademark crushing style, winning by a minute and 28 seconds after another astonishing solo ride 67km from the finish.
Healy was part of the last trio of chasing riders, with around 45km remaining, along with Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel and Denmark’s Mattias Skjelmose. After Evenepoel broke clear with 20km to go, Healy was left to battle for bronze with Skjelmose. Healy made one decisive move just over 5km from the line, never once looking back.
After six hours and 21 minutes of riding, he won bronze two minutes and 16 seconds behind Pogacar. Evenepoel, last year’s Olympic road race champion and three-time World Championships time trial winner, took silver having endured a couple of mechanical setbacks midway through.
Starting with nine 15.1km laps around Kigali, the course veered out to climb the Mur de Kigali, before returning for six more laps around Kigali, ultimately where the medals were decided.
Healy kept himself right in contention after Pogacar first blew the race apart with around 100km remaining, just as the course took on the Mur de Kigali, which peaks at 1,771m above sea level. Isaac Del Toro from Mexico was the only rider to stay with Pogacar after he made his move on the Mur de Kigali before he was dropped with 67km to go, leaving Pogacar out on his own.
Healy, who turned 25 earlier this month, adds his name to the list of previous Irish World Championships road race medal winners, becoming the first to make the podium since Seán Kelly won bronze in 1989.
Stephen Roche won the World Championships title in 1987 having taken bronze in 1983. Kelly won two bronze medals, in 1982 and 1989, finishing in the top-10 seven times in all, while Shay Elliott won silver in 1962.
Healy finished seventh in last year’s road race, staged in Zurich, and had earmarked Kigali as a course perfectly suited to his style of riding.
However, Pogacar was once again in a realm of his own, riding the last 67km without company, similar to his win last year when he took the title after a solo break 50km from the finish. His immense effort on Sunday was in part likely motivated by his defeat to Evenepoel in the time trial a week ago.
Healy’s efforts were supported by four Irish team-mates, Eddie Dunbar, Darren Rafferty, Rory Townsend and Ryan Mullen, who all later joined the list of abandons.
