Tadej Pogačar has warned against reading too much into his knock-out early success against his GC rivals in the opening time trial of the Vuelta a España, but after just 9.4 kilometres of racing, the direction of travel in the GC battle has already been established.
It is true that Pogačar claimed his first-ever lead in the Vuelta a España by the ultra-narrow margin of just 0.09 seconds over Ethan Hayter (Soudal-QuickStep), although in the Tour de Suisse this year, he took his previous time trial win by even less, just 0.04 seconds over Mathieu van der Poel.
