Last Spring Tadej Pogačar was on the rampage in the cobbled Classics, this Spring he’s enjoying runaway success at the Volta a Catalunya. So although the UAE Team Emirates leader is keenly anticipating finding out what happens at E3 Saxo Classic on Friday, the Slovenian says he has no regrets about opting for a radically different race program this April.
“Actually, I’m not missing anything, it’s a pleasure to ride here,” Pogačar said when asked if he was noticing the absence of the cobbled Classics on his schedule this spring.
"But I’m excited to see who’s going to win tomorrow.”
He was third in last year’s edition of E3 Saxo Classic after a long break with Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck). For the first time since the Volta left San Feliu de Guixols on Monday, Pogačar had a quiet stage on Thursday, finishing in the main bunch behind winner Marijn van den Berg (EF Education-EasyPost).
But despite winning back-to-back mountain stages and his 2:27 advantage on second-placed Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep) intact as the race reached its halfway point, Pogačar remained resolutely cautious about his chances of overall victory. A difficult stage looms on Saturday, and Sunday has repeated laps of the technical hilly, Montjuic Park still to come as well, so the GC race was far from over he said.
“Tomorrow [Friday] is a so-so [hilly] stage and then there is a very hard stage [on Saturday], if you have a bad moment, you can crack badly,” he warned.
“So we’ll just take care of ourselves and we’ll try to get through tomorrow and the next day. Then on the last stage [in Montjuic], a lot of things can happen, so we’ll see in Barcelona.”
Thursday, at least, was completely straightforward for Pogačar, so much at ease he even provided a requested shout-out for another rider in the peloton in his post-stage press conference.
“It was a good day to be a bit relaxed in the bunch, and I was happier we had an easier day today,” he said. “It was quite nice - oh, yes, Kenny Elissonde [Cofidis] wants everybody to know he was on my wheel today.”
If Elissonde was following him, in the last three kilometres, in any case, Pogačar’s team made sure he had a ‘designated driver’ to keep him out of trouble, too. In this case, just as it had been on Monday's technical descent into San Feliu, it was up to locally-born teammate Marc Soler to guide his leader securely to a 25th place on the line in Lleida's Principe de Viana avenue.
“Marc was there around me all the time, we just surfed on the wheels, taking care not taking any risks. It was a strong, fast finish, with quite powerful [accelerations] to go out of the roundabouts. So it wasn’t crazy, but it was a bit hectic,” he concluded, before asking rhetorically, “But when isn’t it?”
As Pogačar said, he should have a relatively straightforward stage through the hills of southern Catalunya on Friday, with just two category 2 climbs featuring on the day’s climbing menu. The second category 2, the Alt de la Creu d’Aragall, is by far the harder and includes some 13% ramps.
But the ascent peaks out a full 30km from the finish in Viladecans, a town on the outskirts of Barcelona, giving plenty of time for the bunch to regroup on the fast descent that follows. Then on Saturday, it’s back into the mountains for real.
