Remco Evenepoel won the elite men's European road race title in Ljubljana on Sunday, recovering from a late crash to beat Giulio Ciccone in a photo-finish sprint. His winning time was 4:16:37, and the victory completes the set of championship jerseys the Belgian had been chasing at elite level.
A crash and a second attack
The 196.3-kilometre race packed nearly 2,500 metres of climbing into five finishing circuits around Šenčur. The signature Možjanca climb, a 2.1-kilometre test at an average gradient of 10.3%, decided the contest. Evenepoel attacked on the penultimate ascent but slid out on a right-hand bend at the top, leaving Ciccone alone at the front.
Teammates Maxim Van Gils and Ramses Debruyne helped Evenepoel rejoin the Italian. Four kilometres later he attacked again, this time getting clear with only Ciccone on his wheel. The pair stayed together towards the finish, though co-operation frayed when Ciccone refused to take turns inside the final ten kilometres.
