Giro d’Italia leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) blasted to his second stage win in 24 hours and third of this year’s race so far on Saturday, then brushed aside rival riders’ annoyance that he might not be leaving them as many chances for victories as they would like.
The UAE Team Emirates racer repeated his 2021 Tirreno-Adriatico triumph at the Prati di Tivo summit finish with a searing late acceleration ahead of Dani Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale).
While Pogačar’s gains overall were limited to the 10-second time bonus for first place, unlike in Friday’s devastating time trial performance, he defended his determination to win by saying he was “racing for the team that pays me.”
The one minor concern for the Slovenian on another day of Pogačar domination in the 2024 Giro was a slightly blocked nose due to, he said, “maybe allergies or something. It’s annoying but I think it’ll be ok.”
But after he clinched his 10th win of the season, and continues with a commanding lead both overall and in the mountains classification - the latter with 104 points to closest pursuer Martínez's total of 52 - Pogačar produced a vigorously worded explanation of why he won’t stop pushing for every triumph possible, with one key reason that he owed it to both his team and his teammates.
“I’m 100 per cent [sure] that some guys are annoyed, but I’m racing for the team that pays me, and the riders that are here for me," he said.
“They work their arses off all year so that we come prepared for the Giro. They work so hard so we can be a really strong group and come to stages like today and show that we are strong and that we can win. If we don’t win, then hard work doesn’t pay off, so I’m super happy we could win today and we’ll see what happens in the next days.
“Anyway, the GC contenders showed really good strength on the final climb, so for sure they will get some confidence back and we can see a great battle for the next mountain stages.”
Pogačar explained that, in any case, the decision to limit the advantage of the 14-rider break of the day and set him up for a win had been a collective one, taken by the team midway through the stage.
“The initial decision was to keep the team all together as much as possible, [sprinter Juan Sebastian] Molano did a super good job at the beginning," Pogačar said.
“And then we set the pace on the [first categorized] climb, half the bunch wanted to go in the breakaway. So we set up pace and the guys who were strong got in the break, but fortunately Mikkel Berg and Vegard [Stake Laengen] survived the long climb and we discussed what we’d do after the downhill.
“My teammates, especially Bjerg, were really motivated and confident he could keep the time gap down, and that was it.”
Pogačar recognised that if his teammates were keen for him to go for the win, there have been points in the race when he has been approached by rivals, asking him why he needed to go for another stage.
“But it’s like this, like I said before, the team is here to win the Giro and show that it is strong. If they pay you money, you need to listen to the team, so when we are strong enough to go for the win," he said.
He had, he pointed out, only taken three stage wins out of eight so far, meaning there were five other opportunities available for his rivals, and that was “a lot of opportunities for everybody.”
While that last observation conveniently ignores the fact that he had fought for the win on stage 1, finishing second behind Jhonathan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers), and had staged a late lightning attack on stage 3, a day designed for the sprinters, Pogačar said it had been anything but straightforward to win at Prati di Tivo for a second time in his career.
“It was really hard, a little bit technical in the end, we were climbing so fast that the slipstreams were really helpful," said Pogačar.
“I tried to respond to every attack, and I knew that that would hurt my legs. But luckily Rafał [Majka, teammate] came back to do the leadout and when Rafał came back I knew I had a really good chance to win.”
If the short-term history of the Giro repeated itself on Saturday as Pogačar took his second summit finish stage win and third in under a week, the race history of the Prati di Tivo also re-emerged as the Slovenian claimed his second victory on the climb after Tirreno-Adriatico in 2021.
Back in 2021, Pogačar’s victory came in slightly different circumstances, with an attack five kilometres from the summit. But the end result was the same, and he said that triumph, one of the earliest in his career, had also inspired him on Saturday.
“Yes, I won here, what, three years ago? And that time I won for my girlfriend, I remember that very well and have nice memories of it and that Tirreno. It definitely gives you more motivation to go for the win," he said.
Pogačar will not have those memories to boost his morale on Sunday’s long stage down to Naples, theoretically made for the sprinters. But after proving again that he is the strongest in this year’s Giro on the climbs and with his time trial victory only a little more distant in the race’s rearview mirror, the Slovenian certainly has plenty of reasons to feel optimistic about what’s still to come.
