World Champion Tadej Pogačar admitted he felt concerned at the top of the climb on the penultimate lap after launching an attack 100km from the finish in the World Championships race in September.
“I asked [the team car] how many laps is still to go if it was one or two? And I was really hoping he says just one, and that was the relief. Then I started to see a bit cross-eyed already but I knew that if I had good margin on the top of the long last climb in the last lap that I can do it. There’s still a chance they catch you, but once I hit like 10K to go I was more relaxed but still I was not sure until the last kilometre.”
