For Tadej, the first test at the World Championships in Rwanda didn’t go as hoped. On his 27th birthday he had planned a charge at his first world title in the time trial, but he finished the very demanding 40,6-kilometer time trial with 680 meters of elevation gain in 4th place.
Remco Evenepoel was convincingly the fastest, taking his third consecutive rainbow jersey in the time trial; silver went to Jay Vine, Tadej’s teammate from the UAE Team Emirates – XRG squad, and bronze ent to Ilan van Wilder. Although he trailed Evenepoel by more than two and a half minutes, Tadej missed third place by just a good second and a half.
»The first wish was to have great legs today, but I didn’t. The second wish was to be closer in the fight with Remco, but he was phenomenal today, he was flying. I would have been happy with a podium finish, but two seconds were missing. It’s a bitter taste, but we’ll swallow it and go to the race next Sunday with heads held high, when the chances will be better,« said Tadej after returning to the Slovenian national team’s hotel.
»I didn’t fall into a nice rhythm; in the time-trial position I couldn’t find a rhythm on the climbs and even on the descents the legs wouldn’t turn. I should have done a bit more training on the time-trial bike. I think I’m going in the right direction, it was much better than in Glasgow, this is also a slightly better placing than at the World Championships in Australia. I can take something positive from this time trial, I know there is still a lot that can be improved, this was by no means my best performance,« continued Tadej.
With 4th place he did improve his best placing in time trials at the World Championships, in Wollongong 2022 he took 6th place. He will aim much higher in Sunday’s road race, where he will defend his world champion title from Zürich 2024. »On Sunday I face one of the most exhausting one-day races of my career. We expect an extremely tough race, this time it lasted less than an hour, but ahead of us are six and a half hours of suffering and a lot of elevation gain, I trained well for that. In Montreal, where the course was similar but a little shorter, I had good legs, I think they’ll be even a little better on Sunday,« Tadej told TV Slovenija about the 267,5-kilometer road race with 5.475 meters of elevation gain.
He will compete in it together with a very strong Slovenian national team, which will also include Primož Roglič, Domen Novak, Luka Mezgec, Matej Mohorič, Matevž Govekar, Gal Glivar, Jaka Primožič and Matic Žumer.