It is growing far from unusual to see Giro d’Italia leader Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) close to the front positions in the peloton in the finale of this year’s flat stages, in a clear bid to stay out of trouble. But to shift from that strategy to actually acting as a leadout, as the Slovenian star did on Sunday’s reduced mass sprint into Naples, initially had quite a few puzzled race commentators scratching their heads at Pogačar’s mixing it with the fast men.
Minutes after the finish, though, Pogačar provided the answer himself - that he was acting as a leadout man for Vuelta a España stage winner and teammate Juan Sebastian Molano, who placed third in the sprint behind Olav Kooij (Visma-Lease A Bike) and second-placed Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek).
