Tadej Pogačar could hardly have made shorter shrift of the opposition this year at the Volta a Catalunya as the two-times Tour de France champion blasted his way through atrocious weather conditions en route to the race’s first summit finish of Vallter 2000 to claim both the stage win and the overall lead.
Early in the stage Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates teammate Domen Novak had played a practical joke on the bunch by hiding in some convenient bushes after an early attack, but when it came to the final climb of the day, the Slovenian was clearly in deadly earnest.
Seemingly undeterred by the freezing rain, sleet, fog and temperatures plummetting towards zero on the final Pyrenean climb of the day, Pogačar lived up to his status as the overwhelming pre-race favourite with an attack some 7km from the summit.
On Monday at San Feliu de Guixols, the Slovenian just missed out on the stage victory when he waited a fraction too long to chase down Nick Schultz (Israel-Premier Tech). But this time there was no such hesitation and by the summit, Pogačar’s advantage had yawned open to 1:25 on his closest chaser Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep).
Pogačar was cautious about his chances of overall victory – and with five stages remaining, as well as losing a valuable climbing teammate Jay Vine to sickness, there is still plenty of time for more battles. But after just two days of racing, it’s safe to say the 2024 Volta a Catalunya is already his to lose.
“In the first part of the race, Israel helped a little bit but it was more or less everything on us to control the race,” Pogačar said in the post-race press conference. “And then in the final Pavel [Sivakov], Marc [Soler] and João [Almeida] did an amazing job on the climb.”
“João was telling me at the start he didn’t feel so good, but when he pulled he destroyed all the field and at one moment I was thinking he was so good that he could go with me.”
“We had a little bit of a gap already, but he told me to try to go solo to the finish. I knew it’d be a long way to the top but I had great support on the radio too and I gave it all to the top because I was thinking that here, maybe,” – he joked and gestured at the sides of the cold tent, with no heating whatsoever, where the press conference took place – “they would do a press conference in a warm room.”
Press conferences apart, Pogačar’s victory is his…
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