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.
