Remco Evenepoel completed an unprecedented championship set on Sunday, October 4, winning the European road race title in Slovenia in a photo finish against Giulio Ciccone.
Evenepoel is the first rider in history, male or female, to win the national, European, world and Olympic titles in both the road race and individual time trial across a career.
Christian Scaroni completed the podium, 59 seconds behind. Evenepoel and Ciccone crossed the line after over four hours of racing, with the Belgian's bike throw deciding gold after the Italian emerged from the final corner ahead.
Evenepoel took his road race world title in 2022 before taking four successive world TT titles in the next four years. He won the national road race title in 2023 with the TT title coming in 2022 and 2025. He added both Olympic titles to his name in 2024. The European TT was actually the first of the collection when he won it back in 2019 when he was just 19 years old. He won it again in 2025 but will not defend his title this year, instead adding the road title to his name.
Marianne Vos and Anna van der Breggen are the only other riders in history to complete the road race titles but no-one else has completed the time trial set.
Results
Ljubljana - Šenčur • Oct 4 • 196.3km
| Pos | Rider | Team | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 🥇 | Remco Evenepoel | BelgiumBelgium | 4:16:37 |
| 🥈 | Giulio Ciccone | ItalyItaly | s.t. |
| 🥉 | Christian Scaroni | ItalyItaly | +0:59 |
| 4 | Toms Skujiņš | LatviaLatvia | +1:13 |
| 5 | Iván Romeo | SpainSpain | +1:16 |
| 6 | Ramses Debruyne | BelgiumBelgium | +1:16 |
| 7 | Emil Herzog | GermanyGermany | +1:16 |
| 8 | Maxim Van Gils | BelgiumBelgium | +1:16 |
| 9 | Léo Bisiaux | FranceFrance | +1:18 |
| 10 | Primož Roglič | SloveniaSlovenia | +1:19 |
The victory came a week after the Montréal Worlds road race, where Evenepoel had been among the chasers behind the solo winner. The European road title had been an objective since the beginning of his season.
“I think I was disappointed in myself and also to let down a full nation with a lot of expectations for last week. So I'm really happy and proud with today,” Evenepoel told Cycling Pro Net at the finish.
Belgium's national coach Serge Pauwels described a collective response to the previous weekend's result.
“I think our team really showed a lot of resilience after last week. I mean this was a new race, a new chance and we took it with a lot of responsibility,” he said. “We showed responsibility and we took the race in our hands.”
A crash, an Italian card and a bike throw
Evenepoel crashed with around 38km remaining, at the top of the penultimate ascent, as he and Ciccone attacked. He said the Italian's acceleration had coincided with his own intention to go, prompting an extra push because he wanted to escape alone.
“I think I was going over the top with quite some speed and I just took the corner uh too fast,” Evenepoel said. He also suggested he might have started pedalling too soon before sliding out.
“I was lucky that the bike was still working,” he said, explaining that the right-hand hoods were damaged.
“So luckily I had really strong teammates still there Maxim and Ramses to bring me back and to to place another attack just before the descent and then uh then I had to focus and uh try to go for it till the finish line.”
Ciccone followed that renewed acceleration, and the pair stayed clear to the finish. Italy also had Scaroni chasing alone behind, giving Ciccone a reason to stop contributing while Evenepoel continued driving the move.
“I understand that for him was not a nice situation in the front,” Ciccone said. “But this is the race situation.”
Pauwels got alongside Evenepoel in the closing kilometres to pass on information, with no race radio available. The gap to Scaroni was then 50 seconds, enough for the coach to advise his leader to back off a little in the final kilometre and save something for the sprint. Ciccone was no longer working, and the chase was far enough behind to make that possible.
The final corner gave Ciccone the opening he had planned for. Evenepoel accelerated beforehand to take the lead, but his earlier crash had shaken his confidence in the bends. He admitted choosing the wrong line, allowing the Italian to come through with greater speed.
“So I went full to the left to have a better line and then my plan was just go full after the corner,” Ciccone said.
Ciccone sprinted immediately and opened a gap. Evenepoel had hoped the Italian would launch later, allowing him to build speed before coming past, but instead had to work his way back through the sprint.
“I felt that he was slowing down a bit in the last 100m and then luckily my jump was perfect,” Evenepoel said.
Evenepoel threw more of his bike forwards at the line, bringing his front wheel past Ciccone's at the decisive moment. The photo finish settled a result that had initially looked different to the Belgian team car.
“Actually I thought we lost because we had images of TV in the car,” Pauwels said. “I couldn't believe it, even when I saw the TV images. I mean it was really close.”
Evenepoel had also beaten Ciccone in a two-up sprint at GP Québec on September 11, after doing much of the work in their move.
Ciccone said he plans to race Il Lombardia. For his final two races, he said, “I just want to race without pressure.”
