The 2023 World Road Championships were unusual because of a tight, technical circuit in Glasgow and by the early date because of the UCI's combined championships, but not by who landed on the podium.
Belgium's defending champion Remco Evenepoel had to pass the rainbow jersey off to Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands), with his teammate Wout van Aert forced to settle for silver.
Van der Poel, the key favourite on a course that favoured pure power, attacked on the penultimate lap, crashed before the start of the final lap, got back up - his kit torn, his knee bloodied and his shoe in seeming disrepair - and still won by 97 seconds.
A recent winner of the Clásica San Sebastián, Evenepoel was in fine form but found the course was not to his liking, with more than 40 corners on each of the 10 Glasgow circuits and a course peppered with short, steep climbs.
"It was a very hard course. Personally, for me a bit too technical, a bit too explosive," Evenepoel said. "So not really the course that was my favourite. But if you see the podium, I think it has been an amazing race."
On a rain-soaked finale, Van der Poel powered away with 22km to go and left behind long-time rival Van Aert, while Tadej Pogačar (Slovenia) out-sprinted Mads Pedersen (Denmark) for the bronze medal.
The course was already quite selective before the rain came down, but with wet roads, a crash from Ecuador's Jonathan Narvaez split the group of favourites and Van der Poel, Van Aert, Pogačar and Pedersen were clear to chase down the lone leader Alberto Bettiol (Italy) and race for the rainbow bands.
"I was behind the crash," Evenepoel said of Narvaez's fall. "We never closed the gap anymore on the four riders that were in front, so it's a bit the crash that really divided the group in two pieces. But that's how it goes. And it's a shame. And I think [Van der Poel] is a very beautiful winner."
In 2021, Evenepoel and Van Aert were at odds after France's Julian Alaphilippe stole the show on their home soil in Flanders, disagreeing on whether Belgium employed the best tactics. Evenepoel went on to prove his declaration that he could win the world title in Wollongong last year. This time, Evenepoel seemed to feel that his team did the best they could given Van der Poel's unbelievable display.
"Of course, in a group of 20 guys we were in there with five, I think that's pretty amazing. We just did our best, we tried to take control of the race as long as possible on a course like this. It's not easy at all.
"It would have been better if we were with two or three guys in the front group. Wout was there, he did his race. We tried to control the attacks from behind a few times, which made the gap grow quite quickly. And yeah, I think we did our best. I wouldn't say that the second was the highest place possible for Wout. But of course, if you see Mathieu going off, crashing and then going off after again is pretty amazing. So I think he deserves it."
