The European Championships are a national-jerseys little sibling to the World Championships, but for those of us who love racing without radios and with ambiguous alliances, it’s a bit of dessert after last weekend’s smorgasbord of attacks, rallies, closed gaps, counters — and one very unlikely winner. The predicted winners indeed took home the crowns — but on the men’s side, it took a furious sprint (and very close examination of the photo finish).
Not too far from the Euros in Slovenia, the fall Italian semi-classics opened the door that leads to Il Lombardia next weekend. Stay tuned to Pez; we love our Italian races!
TOP STORY
- Euros: Men’s Racing Steals the Show (for Once) in Slovenia
RACE NEWS
- Lapeira Spoils McNulty’s Party at the Coppa Agostoni
- Giro dell’Emilia: Piganzoli Hands Pidcock Another Silver
- Tour de Langkawi: Jasch on the Rise
TEAM AND RIDER NEWS
- Nairo Quintana Rides Out at the Giro dell’Emilia
- Superman López Out of Appeals
- Lachlan Morton Races the Pony Express
Euros: Men’s Racing Steals the Show (for Once) in Slovenia
It’s remarkable what a shift a single incident can effect: I spent much of the 2026 season exhorting our readers to follow women’s cycling if they wanted to see suspenseful racing, but this weekend, it was the Pogi-less men’s race at the European Championships that kept me engaged until the end.
The very end.
Attribute it not just to the absence of Pogačar on the men’s side: while she’s not the female Tadej — yet — Demi Vollering’s strength Saturday made the women’s race look like the kind we’d come to expect among the men. She won emphatically, with a decisive solo attack, while the men’s race gave us crashes, a two-man breakaway, a rider who refused to pull through, and a photo finish. Two things caused the flip: Vollering’s rise, and Tadej Pogačar’s literal fall.
The Missing Man
I recently predicted (hoped, really) that Pogačar would conjure up something remarkable and memorable, rolling up to the starting line in his home country of Slovenia, host of the Euros. Alas: he was indeed in Slovenia, but only as a spectator. Turns out he really won’t race until next season (and has, he has divulged, allow his fitness to slip severely since his crash on Stage 8 of the Vuelta a España).
Without him, men’s racing suddenly opened up: The Montréal Worlds race went to an extremely long shot, the United States’ Brandon McNulty, yet could at any point have gone in the direction of an any one of an array of riders, from Mathieu van der Poel to Michael Matthews, Tom Pidcock or Giulio Ciccone. The race was six hours of pandemonium, with a leaderless chase group squabbling and Van der Poel’s early aggression backfiring. Nobody saw it coming, and nobody could have, because the one rider who normally decides these races wasn’t there.
Saturday: the Dutch machine
If men’s racing lost its Pogačar, women’s racing may be gaining one. Vollering is now world champion, and while she had to battle resiliently in Montréal for that win, she reinforced her Worlds victory with a seemingly breezy one in Ljubljana.
The Euros route was short and sharp: 130km from Ljubljana to Šenčur, with two laps of a 22km circuit that each included the climb to Možjanca, whose summit came 14km from the line.
The Dutch team did what it does. With Lorena Wiebes on the front, the early break of Carina Schrempf and Margot Vanpachtenbeke was gently reeled in, and Femke de Vries then set a blistering pace up the first ascent. Attacks from Marlen Reusser, Kasia Niewiadoma-Phinney, Cecilie Uttrup Ludwig, Franziska Koch and Liane Lippert all came to nothing. The Dutch let each one hang out and then brought it back.
On the final climb, like in Montréal, Puck Pieterse went to the front, riding on Vollering’s behalf, and again only a couple of riders could follow. This time, though, rather than be reeled in, Vollering attacked with 14.5km to go, and…that was the whole race. She was gone, the chase took time to organize, and she took her second European title.
It was a masterclass, and it was a Pogačar-style move: wait for the right climb, put in one decisive acceleration, and ride away from a field that can’t respond. But a race that is won because the best team and best rider control everything is easy to predict, even when it is superbly executed. Vollering’s win extended Dutch dominance of the event, which has had only one winner from outside the Netherlands in 11 editions. After Vollering eased up in the final kilometers, taking plenty of time to celebrate, Pieterse won the sprint for second, five seconds behind her teammate, ahead of Reusser, while Niewiadoma-Phinney’s medal hopes ended with a crash in the final corner.
So not quite Pogi-esque; even considering the late soft-pedaling, a five-second margin means the win wasn’t a dominant one. But compared to her Worlds win, this one came with relative ease. Afterward Vollering said, in her own words, that she just really loves winning. When one rider and one team decide a race this thoroughly, though, the drama drains out.
Sunday: Chaos, with a Side of Remco
The men’s race was entirely different. Start with the profile: it was much longer, at 196km with almost 2,500m of climbing. The men did five laps of the circuit, and the Možjanca climb averages 10.3% for 2.1km, which is nasty enough to reshape a race every time up.
The Belgian team rode the front for most of the day, with Ramses Debruyne setting a hard pace on the third lap and Evenepoel on his wheel, shedding riders including Mads Pedersen. Then Slovenia had its say, with Matej Mohorič and Jan Tratnik setting a fierce tempo for Primož Roglič, who tucked in behind the Belgians.
With 36km to go, Evenepoel attacked, and Giulio Ciccone went at the same moment. Then came the moment that made the day. Evenepoel slid out after overcooking a corner, leaving Ciccone to continue solo, until Evenepoel got up and, with help from teammates, reeled the Italian back in.
About four kilometers later, Evenepoel attacked again, and Ciccone quickly joined him. They were away. Behind them, Evenepoel’s teammates disrupted the chase and the gap stretched to 40 seconds, with France arriving at the front too late.
What followed was a tense two-up ride to the line. Evenepoel did most of the work. Inside the final 10km, in classic Remco fashion, he shook his head in frustration when Ciccone refused to take a turn. In the end that cost Ciccone nothing, because he did exactly what a clever rider does when he has a stronger man on his wheel: he sat there and saved his legs for the sprint.
Evenepoel led into the final corner at 300 meters, but Ciccone took the inside line and emerged from the turn with a clean advantage. The Italian looked to have the win in the bag, as Evenepoel chased but initially seemed unable to close. With a final surge, as late as the course would allow, Evenepoel sprinted, narrowed the gap, equaled Ciccone, and executed a textbook bike throw. Both had to wait for confirmation, and when it came, Evenepoel screamed in joy while Ciccone was left bitterly disappointed. They were given the same time, 4:16:37. It was one of the closest finishes I can remember in a race of this level.
Christian Scaroni jumped from the chase group with 14km to go and held on for bronze, 59 seconds back.
Remco Completes the Set
The result also finishes something for Evenepoel. He has now won the road race and the time trial at every major national-teams competition there is.
Here is the full list:
- Olympics: at the 2024 Games he became the only male cyclist to win both the time trial and the road race.
- World Championships: the road race in 2022 at Wollongong and the time trial in 2023, 2024, 2025 and now 2026 in Montréal. That is four in a row.
- European Championships: the time trial in 2019 and 2025, and now the road race on Sunday.
The road race was the stubborn one. He took silver at the elite Euros road race in 2021 and again in 2025, so this was a title he had been chasing for years. It was the one championship jersey missing from his collection at the elite level. And for the first time in a few years, we’ll see both the World Champion stripes and the European Champ jersey in the pro peloton.
What it all Means
The last two weekends of racing have been a treat, with three of the four elite road races serving up thrills (and spills, thanks to Evenepoel and Niewiadoma-Phinney). The men’s racing, with Pogačar on the sidelines, has produced two proper thrillers in a row: McNulty’s solo win at the Worlds and a two-man photo finish at the Euros. Women’s racing, with Vollering on top, has delivered Dutch domination and a rider who simply could not be beaten when it mattered. I’d put that Worlds women’s finale in the “gripping” category, so this isn’t a blanket dismissal of the women’s side; consider it instead an appreciation of what the men have served up (and wondering whether we’re catching a glimpse of the post-Pogačar world).
Here at Pez, we’ve been suggesting all season not to sleep on women’s racing, and we’re certainly not retracting that suggestion now. Instead, just do the math: follow women’s racing and men’s racing. You’ll double your chances of seeing a great bike race.
Women’s European Championship Road Race Results
Men’s European Championship Road Race Results
Speaking of last week’s Worlds road race…the late Ed Hood interviewed newly-crowned champ Brandon McNulty back in 2020, having spotted him as a rising star. You can read that rather prescient interview here.
RACE NEWS
Lapeira Spoils McNulty’s Party at the Coppa Agostoni
Paul Lapeira (Decathlon CMA CGM) opened the Trittico Lombardo on Sunday with a win in the Coppa Agostoni, denying world champion Brandon McNulty a victory in the rainbow jersey.
The 26-year-old Frenchman came out on top of a six-man break after 165 hilly kilometers around Lissone, a course packing more than 3,000 meters of climbing over the Sirtori, Colle Brianza and Lissolo.
There was no sleepy opening. The race exploded from the first lap, and after roughly fifty kilometers a five-man group including Mauro Schmid and Lapeira went clear. UAE Emirates XRG took up the chase, and McNulty and Jhonatan Narváez eventually bridged across along with a few others.
The climbs did the rest. Driven on by McNulty, the front group shrank to six by the top of the final Lissolo ascent, with just under 40 kilometers to go: McNulty, Lorenzo Fortunato, Andrea Raccagni Noviero, Sam Maisonobe, Schmid and Lapeira.
Behind, Tom Pidcock attacked from the peloton, and Pepijn Reinderink, Adam Yates, Narváez, Carlos Canal, Filippo Zana and Nicola Conci latched on. It was too little, too late. The gap never dropped below a minute and was back to ninety seconds by the bottom of the descent.
Up front, nobody wanted to gamble. The six stayed together toward Monza’s neighborhood until inside the final two kilometers, when Fortunato twice tried to slip away. Lapeira closed him down both times. Schmid then launched a surprise move in the final straight, but Lapeira shut that door too and took the sprint.
Giro dell’Emilia: Piganzoli Hands Pidcock Another Silver
Tom Pidcock has now been second at the Giro dell’Emilia three years running, which is starting to look less like bad luck and more like a standing reservation. This year it was Davide Piganzoli (Visma-Lease a Bike) who took the win, an Italian winner on home roads for the first time since Alessandro De Marchi in 2018.
The 109th edition ran 197.9km from Ferrara to the top of San Luca in Bologna, with five trips up the famously nasty climb, and it played out the way the race usually does. The first hour was a lot of noise, and then the peloton hit San Luca and the field got shredded. By the later ascents Visma had numbers up front, with Matteo Jorgenson and Piganzoli both in the lead group alongside Pidcock, Oscar Onley and Ben Healy.
Here’s the irony: Pidcock actually towed Piganzoli back onto the leaders on the descent of the penultimate San Luca climb. Piganzoli said thank you by attacking inside the final five kilometers on the run-in to the last ascent. With Jorgenson sitting in the chase group, nobody wanted to do the work, and the gap was 15 seconds at the bottom of the final climb. Pidcock did most of the chasing and Onley eventually joined the effort, but there wasn’t enough road left. Piganzoli held on to win by three seconds.
Pidcock, in his usual honest style, admitted he was “a bit frustrated” after trailing Pogačar in 2024, del Toro in 2025 and now Piganzoli. Onley (Netcompany-Ineos) took third. For a 24-year-old who was third here in 2024, this is a big win, and he can do the same thing next year if he wants.
The women’s race went to another Italian, Alessia Vigilia (Uno-X Mobility), six seconds clear of Sarah Van Dam. That was the first double Italian win since 2017, and it came while Longo Borghini was away racing the Euros.
Tour de Langkawi: Jasch on the Rise
Sure this is EuroTrash, but fact is, there was a reasonably big deal of a race in Malaysia this week, and we owe it a bit of treatment…especially since the winner bears one of those crossover stories that we fans seem to appreciate.
The 30th Le Tour de Langkawi was billed as the toughest edition in the race’s history, and for once the brochure didn’t lie. Organizers added a brand-new climb to Gunung Jerai on stage 2, then followed it with back-to-back Hors Categorie tests at Cameron Highlands and Genting Highlands. Three summit finishes in a 2.Pro race is a long way from the usual Langkawi sprint-fest.
The winner is Lennart Jasch (Tudor), a 25-year-old German who came to cycling from speed skating and is in his first season as a pro, having already generated press as a future GC threat. He took the race by the throat on day two, attacking inside the final two kilometers of Gunung Jerai, catching Abel Balderstone and taking both the stage and the overall lead. The team had been hoping for a top five. He never gave the jersey back.
The tricky part, of course, was holding on. On the Genting queen stage, Nicolas Breuillard (TotalEnergies) won after dropping his break companion Josh Burnett, while Jasch chased in for third and padded his lead with the time bonus. Breuillard had been drafted in late for Jordan Jegat, who was pulled off for Worlds duty, and he’d been sick early in the week, so he could have gone home with nothing.
After that, the remaining stages were flat and the sprinters took over. Matteo Malucelli (XDS Astana) took his third stage of the race on the final day, one for each of stages 1, 3 and 8. In Putrajaya he beat Riley Pickrell (Modern Adventure) and Christiaan Van Rees (Picnic PostNL) in a bunch sprint.
Jasch finished with a 26-second margin over Balderstone of Caja Rural–Seguros RGA, with Balderstone’s teammate Jan Castellon third at 42 seconds. That’s a Caja Rural double podium, and Balderstone is heading to UAE Team Emirates-XRG next year, so remember the name. Jasch also took the King of the Mountains jersey for a clean double. For Tudor it was a stage win and three third places, with Jasch’s GC win coming as his fourth victory of the season.
Not bad for a rider who started the week with “no pressure” and a modest target. Keep an eye on this one.
TEAM AND RIDER NEWS
Nairo Quintana Rides Out at the Giro dell’Emilia
Nairo Quintana’s career ended where it really took off. On Saturday the Colombian pinned on a number for the last time at the Giro dell’Emilia, the Bologna classic he won in 2012, his first year with Movistar. Fourteen years later he lined up for the Spanish team alongside Roger Adrià, Michel Hessmann, Juanpe López, Pelayo Sánchez, Jorge Arcas and Einer Rubio, with the climb to San Luca waiting at the end.
It wasn’t the send-off he’d planned. He announced in March that 2026 would be his last season, with the Vuelta a España, ten years after his win there, as the farewell. Movistar left him out of its Vuelta eight. Montréal Worlds then looked like the finale, and he abandoned that race with 96km to go. On the start line he let slip that there was one more to come.
The résumé is a long one. He turned pro in 2011 after winning the Tour de l’Avenir, and in 2013 he was second to Chris Froome at the Tour, taking the mountains and young rider jerseys. In 2014 he became the first Colombian to win the Giro, and in 2016 he won the Vuelta. He finished second at the Tour again in 2015 and third in 2016, and the list also includes Tirreno-Adriatico twice, Catalunya and Romandie. The Tour is the one that got away, but he was a strong enough rival to Team Sky in those years that most of the peloton had to ask who else was in the fight.
The tramadol disqualification from the 2022 Tour and the year out in 2023 left a stain, but he came back to Movistar in 2024. He said “retiring at my peak would have been selfish,” and cited psychological fatigue rather than lost watts. He plans to work on businesses, youth sport and human rights projects.
Quintana received the classic cycling hero’s sendoff.
Superman López Out of Appeals
Cue the Kryptonite jokes: The Swiss Federal Tribunal has dismissed “Superman” Miguel Ángel López’ last appeal, and the UCI declares the case “definitively closed.”
The story began with Spain’s Operation Ilex, a probe into Dr. Marcos Maynar. Investigators intercepted a parcel of menotropin, a prohibited peptide hormone, addressed to López around the 2022 Giro d’Italia. The UCI Anti-Doping Tribunal handed down a four-year ban (25 July 2023 to 24 July 2027), wiped his results from May 2022 to July 2023, and added a fine of 70% of his 2022 cycling income. CAS upheld all of it in May 2025.
López took a final swing in Switzerland, arguing that the Spanish evidence may have been obtained illegally and that the fine violated human rights. The judges weren’t convinced. They found the illegality claim unproven, said uncovering the truth in doping cases matters most, and called the big fine a legitimate deterrent that stops cheats from profiting.
The UCI “welcomes” the ruling, and who can blame it? The judgment is dated 19 August 2026, and the full decisions will be posted on the UCI website soon.
Moral of the story: don’t mail it to yourself.
Lachlan Morton Races the Pony Express
EF Education-EasyPost has done it again. Starting October 5th, Lachlan Morton will try to ride the Pony Express route from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento faster than the horsemen who once carried the mail.
The mark to beat is seven days and 17 hours, set in 1861 when riders delivered Abraham Lincoln’s inaugural address across 1,966 miles (3,164 km). The service lasted just 18 months before the telegraph killed it, yet the legend outlived it. Marketing departments, take note.
Lachlan’s résumé is already silly: the Tour de France route plus transfers, faster than the peloton; the fastest Tour Divide; the around-Australia record. Now he’ll carry citizens’ letters between stations, because suffering clearly needed a postal component.
The clever bit is the horse swap. Where riders changed mounts every 10 miles (16 km), Lachlan will switch between Cannondale TopStone, SuperSix and Scalpel, picking gravel, road or mountain bike by terrain. A neat story, and a tidy product showcase.
A support truck will handle resupply, with brother Gus filming. Lincoln’s rider got a mochila; Lachlan gets a content crew. The crux is Nevada, Salt Lake City to Carson City. “It’s incredibly remote and very exposed,” Lachlan said. “You’re very much on your own.” Then comes the Sierra south of Lake Tahoe and home roads into Sacramento.
Follow his dot and the daily updates as he chases the horsemen at the endeavor’s official site.
PEZ VIDEO
Check out Richard’s full Worlds highlight reel below – and see the full recap of all his video posts here!
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