Tadej Pogacar added the world road race title to his Tour de France and Giro d'Italia victories on Sunday to become the first man since 1987 to win cycling's triple crown in the same season.

The 26-year-old Slovenian won the 273km race around Zurich in a time of 6hr 27min 30sec, with Australia's Ben O'Connor at 34sec and Dutch one-day specialist Mathieu van der Poel in third at 58sec.

Pogacar wrote himself into the history books with an unorthodox long-range attack, rarely seen at this level, to join Ireland's Stephen Roche from 1987 and Belgian Eddy Merckx from 1974 as a men's triple crown champion.

Annemiek van Vleuten achieved the women's triple in 2022.

In the race, Pogacar attacked with a sudden and unanswered acceleration 100km out, with Slovenian team-mate Jan Tratnik dropping back from an escape group to pace him to the head of the race – a position he would never relinquish.

"It looked like a stupid attack but I came here for the victory and luckily I made it, I never gave up," Pogacar said.

"All these years I've been targeting the Tour de France, and not the world title, which I've never won before, but this year all fell into place."

Any race with Pogacar, Van der Poel and double Olympic champion Remco Evenepoel could expect to be hotly contested and this proved to be the case. (AFP)