The final day of the 2024 UCI Road and Para-cycling Road World Championships saw valiant efforts from the Great Britian Cycling Team in the men’s H4 and elite men's road races, as the squad ended the championships with 22 medals overall.
Men’s elite road race
In a hotly-contested elite men’s race, the Brits worked well together to be well-positioned and followed a number of breaks, with debutant Oscar Onley the highest British finisher in 16th position, while Tadej Pogacar took the rainbow jersey.
With 186km to go, a front group of six led by Silvan Dillier (Switzerland),including Simon Geschke (Germany), Tobias Foss (Norway), Oliveira Alvez (Portugal) and Tom Wirtgen (Luxembourg) had gained a 2:08 minute lead. Behind them, Roberto Gonzalez (Panama) and Markus Pajur (Estonia) put in the case, while the peloton lay in wait three minutes behind.
With just over 100km to go on the technical course, a strong chase group of 10 formed, including Brit Stevie Williams, who was on a mission to shut down the early attack. Williams bridged over with others to form a group of 12 with the peloton around 2:39 behind them. On the fourth city-centre circuit, with crowds gathered in droves on the narrow climbs, Tadej Pogacar (Slovenia) attacked from the front of the peloton to bridge his way over to the lead group, biding his time to make what would be his definitive move.
With 75km to go, the move was made as Pogacar delivered his trademark attack on the climb and got off the front of the group, quickly followed by his trade team compatriot Pavel Sivakov (France).
The duo rode together comfortably 42 seconds ahead of the bunch, before a dangerous chase group of 11 formed including big-hitters Mattieu van der Poel (Netherlands), Ben Healy (Ireland), David Gaudu (France), Jai Hindley (Australia), Ben O’Connor (Australia), Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) and Oscar Onley (Great Britain).
With 63km to go, the break group picked up the pace, with Onley keeping on the wheel and responding to every move made as the group pushed to decrease the 40 second gap to Pogacar and Sivakov, with the bunch 36 seconds behind.
With less than 50km to go, the race had split considerably, with the Brits spread throughout. Pogacar remained out front by 43 seconds, chased by Healy and Skujins, with Onley and van der Poel following as the third group and two more chase groups before British pair Tom Pidcock and Adam Yates could be found in the bunch.
Onley and van der Poel worked together to pull back up to the second chase group riding 1:18 down on Pogacar who continued to breeze on through the course with ease. Pogacar’s dominance over the race was clear, as desperation to catch him led to the whole race splitting up further, weakening any potential efforts to take any time back.
The final lap saw Pogacar maintain his lead with confidence, while three chase groups worked frantically in any attempt to pull him back and bring themselves into podium contention. The riders slogged up the climbs, with groups fracturing with the gradient while the thousands of spectators cheered them on from the roadside on a beautiful sunny day in Zurich.
By this point in the race, 19-year-old Onley was the only rider in contention for Great Britain and had to empty the tank to stay with the pace, but with over 250km of mountainous terrain in his legs, the young rider was starting to suffer and dropped back into the third chase group, over three minutes behind the front.
With no one in touching distance, Pogacar celebrated a fitting end to a show-stopping season, flying across the finish line alone to take the rainbow jersey. In a seven-man sprint finish for second, Ben O’Connor pipped Mattieu van der Poel taking silver and bronze respectively.
Onley showed incredible promise to finish in the bunch in 16th place, finishing with the likes of Hindley and Mads Pederson (Denmark).
Adam Yates came home 30th, Pidcock finished 57th, Simon Yates crossed the line in 68th. After delivering strong supporting performances for their team, Mark Donovan, James Knox, Jake Stewart and Stevie Williams.
On his first elite world championships performance, Onley said: “I think I've got to be happy with how I rode, realistically where I was wasn’t where my legs are so I put myself in position and then it came down to legs. First, I got dropped from that group (second chase) then on the last lap I really blew up from the group behind, but it was a really good experience to be racing at this level and it’s quite a big longer than anything I've ever done so I’m quite happy.”
Men’s H4 road race
Callum Russell rounded off his competition with a solid fifth place finish in the men’s H4 road race. With the out and out favourite Joseph Fritsch (France) attacking from the off to take a 90 second lead early on, Russell’s focus was overcoming the gruelling first climb before being able to put some power down on the city-centre circuit.
Russell passed the first intermediate in a conservative ninth position, before picking up speed and slowly gaining on his rivals to be 15 seconds behind fifth placed Tobias Lotscher (Switzerland). Heading into the final laps, Russell brought the gap back initially to 10 seconds before grinding out more power to overtake Lotscher and finish his first world championships in a commendable fifth position.
Overall, the GBCT para-cyclists had their most successful road world championships ever, surpassing 2023’s tally in Glasgow of 14 medals. They take home 18 medals overall; six gold, nine silver and three bronze, coming third in the medal table.
The junior, under-23 and elite road squads won four medals overall; two gold and two silver, with highlights including Cat Ferguson becoming only the third ever Brit to do the time-trial and road race double, while Seb Grindley won the first ever junior men’s road race medal. They also finish the championships joint third on the medal table.
