{"id":111592,"date":"2025-09-29T14:22:59","date_gmt":"2025-09-29T14:22:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/all-news\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory"},"modified":"2025-09-29T14:41:39","modified_gmt":"2025-09-29T14:41:39","slug":"pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar Acknowledges Pressure Before Kigali Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. <\/strong><\/span>World champion Tadej Pogac\u030car has admitted that there was a lot of pressure on him before he successfully defended his men\u2019s road race title in Kigali on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>The Slovenian super star, who turned 27 on September 21, powered through the grueling 267.5 km course in 6 hours, 21 minutes, and 20 seconds, and cross the finish line in celebration before cheerful thousands of cycling fans at Kigali Convention Centre including President Paul Kagame, UCI President David Lappartient and Prince Albert II of Monaco among other high profile guests.<\/p>\n<p>Pogac\u030car this time won the men elite road race world title, having finished the race one minute and 28 seconds ahead of his Belgian rival Remco Evenepoel, who endured a mid-race mechanical before settling for silver. Ireland\u2019s Ben Healy claimed bronze after finishing 2 minutes and 16 seconds behind Pogac\u030car.<\/p>\n<p>\u00ab I am really happy that i made it, am so happy that we could pull it off as a team because we had a lot of pressure and come here as favourites&#8230;we pulled it off and i am proud and happy, \u00bb said Pogac\u030car after the victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was an amazing experience here, and to put on the jersey again after one year is incredible,\u201d add the world number one who also lauded Rwandan crowd and atmosphere that pushed him through the tough climbs of Mure de Kigali and Cote de Kimihurura (Kwa Mignonne).<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about his experience in Rwanda, and his first time racing in Africa, the four-time Tour de France champion hailed the country\u2019s landscape which helped him prepare well for Sunday\u2019s victory.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really feel it; it\u2019s the nation of a thousand hills. From the moment I arrived here until today, when I\u2019m leaving, I will remember Rwanda in a really positive way. I had one of the best training experiences here with my girlfriend (Urs\u030cka Z\u030cigart) and my team. This made the race even more special,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>The 2025 UCI Road World Championships in Kigali marked the first time the event was held on African soil, and Pogac\u030car\u2019s triumph will forever be linked with this historic milestone.<\/p>\n<p>General Classification Results<\/p>\n<p>Tadej Pogac\u030car (Slovenia) \u2014 6:21:20<\/p>\n<p>Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) \u2014 +1:28<\/p>\n<p>Ben Healy (Ireland) \u2014 +2:16<\/p>\n<p>Mattias Skjelmose (Denmark) \u2014 +2:35<\/p>\n<p>Toms Skujin\u0327s\u030c (Latvia) \u2014 +6:41<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Rwanda<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Rwanda. World champion Tadej Pogac\u030car has admitted that there was a lot of pressure on him before he successfully defended his men\u2019s road race title in Kigali on Sunday. The Slovenian super star, who turned 27 on September 21, powered through the grueling 267.5 km course in 6 hours, 21 minutes, and 20 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":111591,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,18],"tags":[924,8203,758,8204,5170],"class_list":["post-111592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-sport","tag-cycling","tag-pogacar","tag-rwanda","tag-tadej","tag-uci-road-world-championship"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Poga\u010dar Acknowledges Pressure Before Kigali Victory - Rwanda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"World champion Tadej Pogac\u030car has admitted that there was a lot of pressure on him before he successfully defended his m ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poga\u010dar Acknowledges Pressure Before Kigali Victory\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"World champion Tadej Pogac\u030car has admitted that there was a lot of pressure on him before he successfully defended his m ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Rwanda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-29T14:22:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-29T14:41:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2025\/09\/sm_1759144263.142376.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"666\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Poga\u010dar Acknowledges Pressure Before Kigali Victory\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-29T14:22:59+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-29T14:41:39+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory\"},\"wordCount\":394,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sites\/23\/2025\/09\/sm_1759144263.142376.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Cycling\",\"Pogacar\",\"Rwanda\",\"Tadej\",\"UCI Road World championship\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Sport\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/rwanda\/sport\/pogacar-acknowledges-pressure-before-kigali-victory\",\"name\":\"Poga\u010dar Acknowledges Pressure Before Kigali Victory - 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