There are still 2,400km between here and Rome, but it's hard to shake off the feeling that Tadej Pogačar has already put this Giro d'Italia far beyond the reach of any of his rivals. At the very least, Pogačar's inordinately dominant victory in the stage 7 time trial to Perugia leaves the race already on match point with more than two weeks still to go.
"It's still a super long way to Rome and we didn't start the climbing stages," Pogačar said when he took a seat in the press conference truck on Friday evening. "Nothing is over yet."
The comment was intended to suggest there was still life left in this Giro d'Italia as a contest. With all those mountains still to come, of course, one senses that the real contest will be between Pogačar and history, or perhaps between Pogačar's impulse to win all before him at the Giro and his imperative to keep something in reserve for the Tour de France in July.
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'Nothing is over yet ' - Giro d'Italia leader and knockout stage winner Tadej Pogačar remains cautious
All week, there had been quiet confidence emanating from the UAE Team Emirates camp about Pogačar's prospects in the Perugia time trial. Although the Slovenian's era as GOAT candidate essentially began with that startling display at La Planche des Belles on the 2020 Tour, he had won just once against the watch in sixteen attempts since that indelible afternoon and he had been surpassed in the discipline by Jonas Vingegaard the past two Julys.
Last winter, with an eye both to this Giro and a time trial-heavy 2024 Tour de France route, there were murmurs that Pogačar had made a series of changes to his approach to the discipline, including his position, though he was reluctant to sketch out too many details at the finish here.
"You need to be comfortable and still able to push big power," Pogačar said. "I'm not going to tell you what I was doing specifically or else everybody will do it. But it was a lot of work preparing for this."
Whatever Pogačar did, it took him to places nobody else could go on the final haul into Perugia. On the five-mile stretch from the last time check to the finish line on Corso Vannucci, Pogačar was operating in another dimension to the rest. He was more than half a minute quicker there than everybody else and some 1:20 faster than Geraint Thomas (Ineos), the man who had been tipped by some to break even with the maglia rosa here.
Instead, it was a rout. A time trial that might have reopened the Giro looks to have locked it up tightly, leaving Pogačar with a lead of 2:36 over Daniel Martinez (Bora-Hansgrohe) in the Giro d'Italia overall standings. Thomas is now third at 2:46, while Ben O'Connor (Decathlon-AG2R) – who was thwarted by a dropped chain on Friday – is fourth at 3:33.
Ineos have looked like the strongest team in this race thus far, an impression underscored by the fine displays of Filippa Ganna, Magnus Sheffield and Thymen Arensman (second, third and fourth) in the time trial. But they know that overturning this deficit against this Pogačar would be an even more remarkable turnaround than Tao Geoghegan Hart's surprise 2020 victory.
"2:46 is not a margin to be scoffed at, that's for sure," Ineos directeur sportif Zak Dempster admitted. "It's an important margin. I think UAE's got the responsibility here and it's their race to lose. At the same time, they've got a bit of a weapon in Pogačar, so it's not going to be simple."
The race for the podium places will be intense, of course, but for Pogačar, the next two weeks look set to be a procession. In Perugia, which served as a refuge for popes and a site of papal conclaves in the 12th and 13th centuries, the list of the papabili at this Giro has been whittled down to just one name.
Prati di Tivo
Cycling may have changed beyond all recognition in the 2020s, but there is something of the 1990s about this Giro d'Italia. Back then, Miguel Induráin routinely used to deflate Grand Tours at the end of the first week by dishing out a hefty beating to his rivals in the first long time trial, a staple of course design in that era. And, when the mood took him, like at Hautacam on the 1994 Tour, he would repeat the dose on the next available mountaintop finish.
Induráin's strategy was to put the remotest notion of winning the race out of the minds of his rivals at the earliest available opportunity. If Tadej Pogačar hasn't already done that at Perugia in the stage 7 individual time trial, then he has an obvious opportunity to do so at Prati di Tivo on Saturday.
Three years ago, Pogačar claimed the summit on Tirreno-Adriatico and while Simon Yates came home just six seconds down, the rest of his challengers were scattered across the mountainside by his devastating series of accelerations.
On Saturday, the climb comes at the end of a 150km stage from Spoleto, which takes in the category 2 Forca Capistrello (16.2km at 5.6%) and the category 3 Croce Abbio. The day will be defined, however, by Prati di Tivo, which climbs for 14.6km at an average of 7%. For the most part, the gradient flits between 6 and 8%, save for some ramps of 12% at Pietracamela, just under 6km from the top.
The Giro gruppo will be braced for Pogačar to serve up another disquieting volley of accelerations here, come what may, with Rafal Majka inevitably turning the screw. Dani Martinez, Geraint Thomas and Ben O'Connor know that they face the first of many match points on this Giro at Prati di Tivo, even if Pogačar tried to insist that his race would still be a complicated one, despite his hefty advantage.
"For sure, now everybody will try to attack from far, go into breakaways, see the opportunities," Pogačar said. "I think it's going to be really, really tough to control the next days and weeks until the end."
Perhaps, but even allowing for all the various joyous and sorrowful mysteries this race tends to produce, Pogačar's position looks unassailable, save for the usual caveats about encountering injury or illness over the remaining 2,400km.
"Rome is far, and the Giro is long," Dempster said on Friday afternoon. For Pogačar's rivals, that thought sounds more like a problem than a possible solution.
Stage details
The overall contenders, with legs burning from the 40.6km time trial on stage 7, will have to convince their muscles to work a different way on this mountainous stage from Spoleto to the summit finish at Prati di Tivo. They'll get a warm-up from the flag drop with an unclassified climb to Forca di Cerro - a perfect launching pad for a breakaway.
The road dips then heads straight back up to the category 2 ascent to Forca Capistrello - 16.3km long at 5.6% with much steeper gradients toward the summit. The bunch gets to settle in for the long haul with the sprinters picking up minor points behind the probable breakaway in Leonessa and the Intergiro in Capitignano.
The next climb is a gentler category 3, where the escapees will struggle to hold their advantage as the lead-out to the final climb begins. A long descent heads to the base of the 14.6km ascent to Prati di Tivo with a cruel intermediate sprint midway up in Pietracamela. It's a steady climb without huge gradient changes although there is a very short section of 12% before the finish of this 152km stage.
Stage 8 Sprints
- Intermediate sprint, km. 58
- Intergiro bonus sprint, km. 104.4
- Time bonus sprint, km. 146
Stage 8 Mountains
- Forca Capistrello (cat. 2), km. 37.1 - 16.3km long at 5.6% (max 12%)
- Croce Abbio (cat. 3), km. 112.6
- Finish: Prati di Tivo (cat. 1), km. 152 - 14.6km long at 7% (max 12%)
