When the bright pink figure of Tadej Pogačar stayed close to the front of the Giro d’Italia peloton on the bunch sprint finale of stage 12, it instantly sparked speculation that he might be aiming to repeat his lead out at Naples for UAE Team Emirates fastman Juan Sebastian Molano. But that wasn’t the case.
As Pogačar explained afterwards, the Giro leader’s main aim in a fraught, chaotic bunch sprint into Francavilla al Mare was to stay out of trouble, and his presence in the front 10 to 15 riders was purely and simply with that aim in mind.
The maglia rosa did some late work for team sprinter Molano and Rui Oliveira - another key element in the bunch sprint finales for UAE - but well before the last buildup for the line. “Before the last three kilometres they cover me and I cover them,” he told reporters.
But another Pogačar lead out is unlikely to materialize either on Thursday, he said, with its 10 short, very punchy late climbs that Pogačar likened to a memorable day in Tirreno-Adriatico in 2021 when Mathieu van der Poel triumphed with a spectacular solo break, nor yet on the much flatter stage 13 into Cento that follows.
“It was a long day in the saddle and a really fast finale with a tailwind,” Pogačar explained about stage 11. “We always knew it was a little bit dangerous because tailwinds and crosswinds are more stressful.
“But then it turned into a sprint with a headwind and that’s super hard for the lead-out men, when they switch off from the front they drop back at double their usual speed and it can cause really nervous moments.”
Pogačar was fortunate to avoid a crash “right in front of me,” as he said, in the last 500 metres. “But luckily today I survived. I also heard after the finish that [teammate] Felix Grossschartner crashed and I hope he’s OK. For me, in any case, I’m just happy that the stage is over.”
While the UAE Team Emirates race lead entered double digits for the first time in the Giro, he explained that he viewed riding close to the front in the finale as best practice for a leader regardless.
“It’s safer there, because you never know where you can crash. I always ride more or less like this, I try to stay close to Rui [Oliveira] and Molano in the final. They also did a great job, and also before the team did a good job, staying on the left all the time, so we were more or less safe.”
Apart from taking forward positioning to notable levels when leading a race in the sprint stages, Pogačar said he also liked to stay in what he called “an air bubble” to protect himself. He explained that by never following certain wheels and having a certain amount of space around him, there was much less risk of contacting with anybody when a crash did occur. His avoiding a late pile-up involving Team dsm-firmenich PostNL sprinter Fabio Jakobsen on stage 11 was a case in point, and he had enough reaction time, he said, to avoid it.
“This was for me the most dangerous moment of today, but you never know where it can happen,” he argued. “All the bunch goes at 60 kilometres per hour or something, and it’s always dangerous.”
A lead out like in Naples was not possible three days later, he explained, because “It was a headwind and it was for the big guys, this was a day when absolute power came into play. Two days later [stage 13] it’s going to be the same, it’s pancake flat, so it’s for the teams with the big lead-out guys. In Naples, it was a hard finish so it was easier to be in the front.”
Memories of Tirreno-Adriatico
Rather than pure sprinters like on stage 11 and stage 13, stage 12 should see the Classics men in the Giro peloton come to the fore as the second half of the day is peppered with no less than 10 short climbs, four of them classified as cat 4s. The final ascent of Monte Giove is unclassified but it peaks out just three kilometres from the finish and has a segment reaching a leg-breaking 20%.
Small wonder, then, that rather than reminding Pogačar of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, as one Italian TV reporter - perhaps thinking of the Slovenian’s recent second victory in the Ardennes Monument - suggested was possible, Pogačar likened stage 12 to the one finishing in Castelfidardo in the 2021 Tirreno-Adriatico, won by Van der Poel.
“It’s quite similar with short steep climbs, but it’s a Grand Tour stage,” Pogačar said.
“It’s going to be really crazy for getting in a break, I think, unless somebody in the bunch has other ideas. But I doubt it, this is stage 12 of the Giro. So everyone else will want their shot in the break and it will be a hard stage to control.”
If stage 11 was essentially a day for Pogačar to get through, he did report that the allergies that had seemingly affected him during the Giro’s most southerly stages now were close to drying up completely. But he said, in any case, that he fully comprehended the abandonment of Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma-Lease a Bike), the young rider classification leader who fell ill before the start of the stage.
“I’ve seen a lot of guys are getting sick, but I’m getting better, I’m almost OK,” Pogačar said. “In the peloton on the day before the rest day, there were a lot of guys coughing and snorting, so I hope they are all right.
“Cian got a fever and that is not nice in a Grand Tour, it’s really hard to continue. So maybe from a medical point of view it was best [for him] to pull out.”
While Pogačar reminded viewers of Van der Poel’s spectacular stage 5 win on the muri of the 2021 Tirreno, there can be little doubt, too, that the Giro's racing in Tirreno territory on Thursday will bring him some good memories as well.
When en route to the second of two overall Tirreno victories in 2022, which was on stage 4 in nearby Bellante, Pogačar secured a dramatic triumph on a similarly punchy circuit. And the year before, while - as Pogacar said - Van der Poel won the even tougher, lumpier stage 5 at Castelfidardo with a spectacular 60km solo ride, it was the Slovenian who finished a scant 10 seconds behind in second place and who took Tirreno outright.
The break may well be the deciding factor in the outcome of Thursday’s stage, then, but if Pogačar wants to relive his memories of Tirreno as well, it would perhaps not be so surprising, either.
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