Remco Evenepoel changed bikes with the Clásica de San Sebastián already sharpening the knife. Lidl–Trek hit the race. The favourite was stranded near the back. The gap reached 36 seconds before Erlaitz, a climb that averages better than ten percent and has no sympathy for a man chasing on the wrong side of the selection. That should have been the end. Instead, Evenepoel came back, rode nearly everyone off his wheel on Murgil, beat Richard Carapaz in the Boulevard sprint and became the first four-time winner in the race’s 45 editions. Four starts. Four wins. A mechanical gave the field its chance. The field handed it back.
Seven climbs and nowhere to hide
The numbers were blunt: 221.1 kilometres, more than 4,150 metres of vertical gain and seven classified climbs across Gipuzkoa. Kalbario, Azkarate, Urraki and Alkiza did the early grinding. Jaizkibel, Erlaitz and Murgil were kept for the execution. Eight riders eventually formed the day’s break — Laurenz Rex, Iñigo Elosegui, Ådne Holter, Valentin Ferron, Lorenzo Quartucci, Nicolás Alustiza, Nickolas Zukowsky and Joan Bou — and took roughly two minutes. Red Bull–Bora–Hansgrohe worked behind because everyone knew who carried the burden of the race.
By Jaizkibel, the break had started shedding riders. Rex and Quartucci survived at the front before being joined by Bart Lemmen, Sean Quinn and Michael Leonard. At 60 kilometres to go, that group held only 16 seconds. The escape was almost dead. Then the race found a sharper way to hurt its favourite.
The mechanical was the invitation
Evenepoel suffered a mechanical at the worst point of the afternoon, changed bikes and fell to the back just as Lidl–Trek drove the pace. Giulio Pellizzari dropped from the front group to help his leader, but a team-mate cannot erase a half-minute deficit on a ten-percent climb by kindness. At the front, Jan Christen attacked. Defending champion Giulio Ciccone answered. Carapaz, Matteo Jorgenson, Enric Mas, Felix Gall and Maxim Van Gils remained in the reduced selection. Evenepoel began Erlaitz looking less like the overwhelming favourite and more like a man watching his unbeaten record disappear around the next bend.
Thirty-six seconds down.
One mechanical from losing a race he had never lost.
The gap did not move on the steepest ramps. That was the trap. The leaders reached the top with the strongest rider still behind them and then failed to finish the job. There was no clean agreement up front, no sustained line of riders willing to spend themselves keeping Evenepoel out. On the false flat and rolling descent, his power stopped being a liability and became a weapon. He cut the deficit in half, kept cutting and returned with 32 kilometres remaining. The door had been open. Nobody slammed it.
Murgil tells the truth
The regrouping left a reduced field for the approach back through Donostia. UAE set tempo. Evenepoel recovered. Then Murgil-Tontorra arrived: 2.1 kilometres at 10.1 percent, ramps reaching 20, its summit only 8.2 kilometres from the finish. This is not a climb where a team radio can manufacture strength. The gradient asks the legs directly.
Evenepoel did not need theatre. He stood on the pedals and drove the pace until the group came apart. Carapaz was the only rider able to stay attached. Ciccone and Léo Barré could not close. Ben Tulett led the chase, but by the summit the race had narrowed to two Olympic champions and a short descent to the sea.
Sixteen seconds
The surviving escape groups merge on Jaizkibel, almost within reach of the peloton.
Mechanical
Evenepoel changes bikes as Lidl-Trek accelerates and begins Erlaitz roughly half a minute down.
Still thirty-six seconds
Ciccone leads over Erlaitz. The front group does not cooperate on the road beyond the summit.
The favourite returns
Evenepoel uses the false flat and descent to close the gap and rejoin the reduced field.
Two leave Murgil
Evenepoel sets the pace; Carapaz is the only rider who can follow over the summit.
The fourth txapela
Evenepoel beats Carapaz in the Boulevard sprint. Tulett leads the chase home at 29 seconds.
Carapaz takes the guarantee
Carapaz worked with Evenepoel on the run-in. That choice will be chewed over because the Belgian owned the stronger sprint and because Carapaz even rolled through near the final 600 metres. The hard answer is that the Ecuadorian was protecting a WorldTour podium while Tulett’s group sat close enough to steal it. Refusing every turn might have made Evenepoel do more work. It might also have brought the chasers back and turned a certain second into fifth. Bike racing does not offer clean courage. It offers percentages, contracts and a team car counting UCI points behind you.
Evenepoel launched in the Boulevard and won cleanly. Carapaz finished on the same time. Tulett took third at 29 seconds, ahead of Christian Scaroni and Pello Bilbao. Could Carapaz have made the Belgian carry every metre and found one last ambush? Perhaps. But the decisive failure had come earlier, when an entire front group had Evenepoel 36 seconds behind and could not keep him there.
Four is the record now
Marino Lejarreta won the Clásica three times, in 1981, 1982 and 1987. Evenepoel matched him with victories in 2019, 2022 and 2023. On Saturday he moved past him. No rider had won four. No rider had started four editions and won every one of them. Evenepoel did it one week after finishing second in the Tour de France, carrying three weeks of racing in his body and one late mechanical in his legs.
Records often look inevitable after they have been broken. This one was not. For several kilometres, the race had the favourite where every rival wanted him: isolated, angry, behind, under the Basque sun. They let the strongest engine back into the room, then acted surprised when he took the furniture. What do you call a second chance when the man receiving it has never needed one here?
Sources
- Donostiako Klasikoa — official 2026 route, distance and climbing
- AS — Evenepoel enters Clásica history
- El País — fourth victory and mechanical chase
- Cadena SER — result, time and top five
- Cyclingnews — 2026 course and pre-race context
Related reading
CyclingFreePress is a cycling news digest. This report is built from the official route and independently reported race coverage listed above. Times and gaps are as reported on 1 August 2026 and may be amended by the race jury.