The Slovenian interpreted Saturday’s setback as a challenge, and on Sunday Pogacar triumphed once again solo. He wants to achieve the historic double of Giro and Tour victory.
Aiming for the historic double of Giro victory and triumph at the Tour de France: Slovenian Tadej Pogacar.
Jennifer Lorenzini / Reuters
Tadej Pogacar now loves enormous challenges. The Slovenian doesn’t just want to win races. “I want to go down in history as one of the greats,” he said.
Pogacar’s appearance at the Giro is also destined for the history books: the debutant isn’t just aiming for victory at the Tour of Italy. Afterwards he also wants to win the Tour de France – and thus achieve the prestigious double.
No professional cyclist has achieved this this century. The last person to do that was Marco Pantani in 1998. Pogacar wasn’t even born back then. He was born just two months after Pantani’s triumph in France in the village of Klanec, around 20 kilometers from Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana.
He was fascinated by cycling from an early age, especially Italian. «Italy is not far from Slovenia. As a child, my father often took me to stages that were close to the border. I remember the 2014 Giro particularly well, when our compatriot Luka Mecgez won the stage in Trieste,” Pogacar said recently. As a teenager he also took part in races in Italy. «The country shaped me as a cyclist. I love Italian culture and Italian food anyway.”
💗 Come to the #Tour of Italy they said, it’ll be fun they said.@TamauPogi hasn’t taken long to show his talent on la Corsa Rosa pic.twitter.com/aIh9kUIOBx
— Giro d’Italia (@giroditalia) May 5, 2024
The UAE manager has had to hold Pogacar back so far
What was strange in view of all these expressions of love was that Pogacar had not once accepted the Giro organizers’ offers. “It really wasn’t Tadej’s fault. If it were up to him, he would have already completed the Giro, the Tour de France and the Vuelta in one year. But we had to hold him back, first make sure his body was strong enough for such challenges,” said Mauro Gianetti, manager of Pogacars Team UAE, at the start in Turin.
Training and competition plans were changed for the double project. Even the coach was replaced. “It was about giving new impetus. If you do the same thing year after year, you won’t get better. This requires stimuli, both physical and mental,” said Gianetti.
The most important change, however, was the huge reduction in racing days. Pogacar, who loves competition, only took part in a race ten times before the Giro. On six of these ten days he left the road as a winner, winning the Strade Bianche and Liège-Bastogne-Liège with impressive solo rides.
He dominated the Tour of Catalonia with four stage victories and winning all classification jerseys. But he quickly flew back from the races to the high-altitude training camp and worked on his form there. After this unusual combination of a few days of competition and many days of training, he sees himself as the “best version of myself”.
At Pogacar this year, team manager Gianetti primarily observed “improvements in general resistance and performance after six hours”. Pogacar should be prepared especially for the mountain stages.
The reduced competition calendar also had the beneficial side effect of avoiding falls. While his three presumably toughest competitors for the overall tour ranking – Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel – sustained some serious injuries during the Tour of the Basque Country, Pogacar trained without any problems. The second part of his double plan could be even less difficult for Pogacar than expected.
The challenges in the first part of the plan are likely to be even greater. The start of the Giro didn’t quite go according to plan, even for the “best version of himself”. On the first stage he failed to capitalize on his team’s preparatory work: Jhonatan Narvaez and Maximilian Schachmann were faster in the sprint in a group of three. Schachmann initially surprised Pogacar with an attack 16 kilometers from the finish. Narvaez didn’t let Pogacar’s race to catch up on the last mountain shake him off. This could be a suitable way to challenge Pogacar: make surprise attacks yourself, force the Slovenian to react and then shadow him mercilessly.
On the second Giro attack, Tadej Pogacar launched the decisive attack around four and a half kilometers from the finish.
Youtube
Pogacar interpreted the defeat at the start as a challenge. The lion was irritated. He also let his team pick up the pace on the second stage on Sunday. However, a defect eleven kilometers from the finish set him back. Pogacar even slipped and his team car almost collided with him. But with some extra effort, he made it back to the front. His colleagues led him back into the field just at the beginning of the final climb. Afterwards, Team UAE set the rhythm again. Around four and a half kilometers from the finish, Pogacar started and distanced the field in the same way as he had done in his big victories in the spring.
On the trail of cycling heroes
This means Pogacar is back on track for a double. Numerous experts are convinced that the Slovenian can do it. “It’s certainly possible for Tadej,” said Alberto Contador. The Spaniard had tried it twice himself – and failed twice. “Who if not him,” said Eddy Merckx. The Belgian even achieved the double three times, each two years apart (1970, 1972 and 1974). And Stephen Roche said: “Pogacar can even win the treble.” The Irishman had achieved this himself in 1987, with victories at the Giro, the Tour de France and the World Championships – something Eddy Merckx also once achieved.
The heroes of cycling are setting the bar very high for Pogacar. Its stimulus seems to be, above all, to compete against the powerful shadows of the past.
Of course, Pogacar should not forget that in the fight for a prominent place in the history books he first has to defeat his contemporaries. They are currently not prepared to settle for extra roles. “As long as your legs are good, you can still achieve something,” said Geraint Thomas. The Brit is in second place overall after the opening weekend and is likely to be Pogacar’s toughest competitor.
Pogacar already had to make one compromise in his hunt for records at the weekend: he can no longer compete with Gianni Bugno, who wore the pink jersey from the first to the last day in 1990. Even those who are seemingly all-powerful don’t always succeed in everything.