Matej Mohoric wins Bronze at gravel worlds

At the UCI gravel world championships held in Southwestern Netherlands, Matej Mohoric showed a strong performance. Competing for Slovenia’s national team, the rider of Team Bahrain Victorious could constantly keep himself within the top 10 and managed to ride to the Bronze medal aboard the new race gravel model of MERIDA BIKES.

This year’s UCI gravel world championships were held in the Southwest of the Netherlands around the cities of Maastricht and Valkenburg. This is likely the most hilly part of the Netherlands, and the race organisers had packed a number of climbs into a loop that measured just a bit under 50 kilometres. In total, the course of the 4th men’s world championship race covered a distance of 180.9 kilometres, featuring only a few really flat sections and a steady up and down instead. After what he considered a sobering season in terms of results, Matej Mohoric was looking for some kind of redemption in Maastricht.

At these championships, the world champion of 2023 nevertheless wanted to prove his class and end the season on a high. And just as in 2023, Mohoric showed an open mind when it came to choosing the equipment or the task at hand: Two years ago, he had lined up for the World championships aboard a prototype of MERIDA BIKES's new SILEX gravel bike. This year was no different, as he was racing a new model that is only set to be launched in early November. The new race gravel and multi-surface model was clad in a custom paint job that featured accents in the same green colour that is typical for the jerseys of Slovenia's national cycling teams. With Matevz Govekar a second rider of Team Bahrain Victorious was competing on the new gravel bike.

As soon as the championship race had started, there was no time to find a pace. While a first attack could be brought back, the second attack already saw Florian Vermeersch and Frits Biesterbos go up the road - the same two riders that would fight for the world champion title some hours later. Matej Mohoric was one of the most active riders in pursuit, managing to drop all others except Swiss rider Felix Stehli and went on to catch and drop a number of riders from there. But as the two leading riders stayed out of reach, Mohoric could only drop his last companion and secure the Bronze medal.

Matevz Govekar suffered some bad luck early on and thus lost contact with the first large group, which meant he was out of contention for the fight for medals and higher placings. In the end, Govekar crossed the finish line in 32nd place at almost eleven minutes behind the new world champion.

RESULT:
4TH UCI GRAVEL WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS: BEEK - MAASTRICHT, 180.9 KM
1. Florian Vermeersch, BEL, in 4:39.12 hours
2. Frits Biesterbos, NED, + 0.40
3. Matej Mohoric, SVN, + 1.23

Photos: Sprint Cycling Agency