In modern cycling, so the thinking goes, a rider can no longer use races for training. On this Giro d’Italia, Tadej Pogačar has regularly appeared to defy that consensus. At times, like on Monte Grappa on Saturday afternoon, his race has felt very much like an extended training camp for the Tour de France.
The UAE Team Emirates rider had indicated beforehand that he was targeting victory on stage 20 in Bassano del Grappa, and so it proved. On this Giro, Pogačar has been able to win more or less how he pleases, and his decision to attack with a shade under 6km of Monte Grappa still remaining suggested that he had a very specific effort in mind for the last public workout of his Italian sojourn.
“It was the plan was to finish the Giro with high morale and good legs – I achieved this, so I can be happy with this goal,” Pogačar said after soloing to victory more than two minutes clear of the chasers. “Today was the final test on the climbs so I can be really happy with how it went.”
The penultimate stage of the Giro featured a double ascent of Monte Grappa, and while Giulio Pellizzari, one of the revelations of this race, offered up a defiant long-range attack the first time up, the day’s result was never in doubt, with UAE Team Emirates ensuring the Italian’s lead never spiralled out of control.
On the second time up Monte Grappa, the pattern was familiar. After Rafal Majka had dialled up the pace, Pogačar cruised clear of the rest, quickly catching and passing Pellizzari. By the summit, he was already almost two minutes clear, and despite avoiding risks on the 31km drop the line, he would extend his advantage further by the time he reached the finish on Bassano del Grappa’s Viale delle Fosse.
On the climb, Pogačar had been less concerned by his fellow riders than by the tifosi spilling onto the road. He remonstrated with one fan who patted him as he rode past, and he was discomfited, too, by a rowdy group crowded around a pink flare. “One guy had a flare next to me, and I felt some sparks on my arm,” Pogačar said. “But without them, this wouldn’t be a show, so I’m grateful to them.”
In truth, the show at this Giro has been a Pogačar solo act from start to finish. He will ride into Rome on Sunday with a final advantage of 9:56 over Daniel Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe), breaking the 21st century record, set by Ivan Basso in 2006 shortly before he was formally implicated in Operacion Puerto.
“Even if you win by one second, it’s a victory. In this Giro, it just happened to be this way,” Pogačar said of his mammoth winning margin, dismissing the notion that he had been aiming on Saturday to extend his lead beyond 10 minutes.
Since the race left Turin three weeks ago, Pogačar hasn’t conceded so much as a second to his distant general classification rivals, and from the outside, it has been difficult to pinpoint even the slightest wrinkle in his race. The only, short-lived difficulty, perhaps, was his low-speed crash at the foot of Oropa on stage 2.
“It was not all smooth sailing,” Pogačar insisted. “We made it to here with a good margin to second place, but for sure there were sometimes hard moments. But I finished really good, like I hoped for, and like I imagined in my goal.”
2024
The Giro is, of course, only the first instalment of a busy period for Pogačar, who is aiming to become the first man since Marco Pantani in 1998 to win the corsa rosa and the Tour in the same year. Since conjuring up an 81km solo effort to win Strade Bianche in March, there has been a growing impression that Pogačar’s 2024 vintage is his best yet, though July will be the ultimate test.
“This year I made another step,” Pogačar said. “Every year it’s harder to improve, but I can be super happy and lucky I could still find some improvements through winter. I’m super happy I made some small gains, and experience comes into play now as well.”
Last winter, Pogačar made the decision to switch coaches for the first time in his professional career, replacing Iñigo San Millán with Javier Sola. On the evidence of Pogačar’s astonishing hegemony so far in 2024, the partnership is one that appears to be bearing fruit, even if he was reluctant to offer detail about the tweaks to his training philosophy.
“I cannot tell everything what I did different,” Pogačar said. “With Iñigo, we had a good relationship, his training was super good for me, but maybe sometimes you need a change of pace, different stuff, a different style of training.
“After five years or so with Iñigo, it was a little bit enough of the same training, so this year I tried something new, including different things off the bike, like more work on my physique. It’s not a big change, but let’s say it was a good change. I can say I’m super happy with how my winter went.”
His summer has started pretty well too.
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