Glutton Tadej Pogacar puts the finishing touches on the final stage of the Tour of Catalonia

Sunday, March 24, 2024 at 1:56 PM

Tadej Pogačar can call himself the overall winner of the 103rd edition of the Tour of Catalonia. The Slovenian did not encounter any more problems in the final stage to Barcelona. In fact, he managed to further emphasize his overall victory by winning the final stage in a sprint.

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Barcelona and the Montjuïc mountain once again formed the backdrop for the final stage of the Tour of Catalonia this year. The peloton first made a hilly loop around the Catalan capital, before returning to the city center and climbing Montjuïc six times (2.5 km at 4.6%). The passage of this hill is mainly characterized by a short strip of no less than 19% just before the ‘first’ top. Last year we saw a great battle in Barcelona between winner Primoz Roglic and number two Remco Evenepoel.

Leading group of five, with Jimmy Janssens
This year there was no such conflict – and associated tension. Tadej Pogacar started the final stage with a street length lead and would take the overall victory without any accidents. However, there was still a final, prestigious stage victory at stake. This inspired five riders to attack: Jimmy Janssens (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), Harrison Wood (Cofidis), Idar Andersen (Uno-X Mobility) and Ander Okamika (Burgos-BH) .

These five adventurers received the blessing of the peloton, but UAE Emirates (the team of leader Pogacar) and Israel-Premier Tech managed to keep the lead within limits. The difference never exceeded two minutes and so they had to wait for a regroupment. Just before the first passage over the Montjuïc, the peloton was startled by a crash by Frank van den Broek and Nairo Quintana. The Dutchman and Colombian then decided to leave the match.

The men of BORA-hansgrohe keep leader Vlasov out of trouble – photo: Cor Vos

Course on Montjuïc
Once on the local circuit in Barcelona, ​​the race opened up completely. Several riders tried to release their devils and ride away from the peloton. The wheat was also separated from the chaff in the leading group. The strong Steinhauser – on the attack for the third day in a row – continued on the steeper flanks of the Montjuïc and only Andersen turned out to be able to join his wagon. In the background, Marc Soler and Valentin Paret-Peintre decided to launch a counter-attack.

The Spaniard and Frenchman turned out to be very good allies and seemed to drive towards the two remaining leaders, Andersen and Steinhauser. In the peloton it was mainly a matter of running and standing still, also because UAE Emirates tried to stop in Soler’s service. However, it turned out not to be so easy for the two counter-attackers to attack the leaders. Andersen and Steinhauser in particular made a big impression, and held up surprisingly well.

Strong Steinhauser is captured anyway
In fact, Steinhauser was able to tap into another energy tank in the last 25 kilometers and continued alone. Andersen was no longer able to keep up with the strong German and fell back to Soler and Paret-Peintre, who in turn lingered and were even caught again by the peloton. In the meantime, Steinhauser seemed to be in his final throes at the peak of the race: at the start of the last twenty kilometers, his lead had already shrunk to about fifteen seconds.

With fifteen kilometers to go, Steinhauser’s brave attack attempt came to an end and we could prepare for an explosion of power on Montjuïc. None other than Pogacar decided to tear things up on the steepest stretches, but was unable to get away. In the phase that followed, several riders tried their luck, but it turned out to be extremely difficult to make a significant breach. And so it came down to the final passage of Montjuïc.

‘Mister Catalunya’ Thomas De Gendt moves on
And on the last climb of the day we saw an attack by… Thomas De Gendt. The Belgian attacker of Lotto Dstny – already a five-time stage winner in the Tour of Catalonia and in the past successful in the final stage in Barcelona – stood on the pedals. The gap seemed worth it for a while, but turned out not to be big enough to stay out of the grasp of the better punchers. De Gendt was grabbed by the torso before the steepest stretches of the Montjüic, and this turned out to be the signal for Stephen Williams to attack.

The explosive Briton took off at rocket speed and emerged first with a small lead, but Pogacar, Egan Bernal, Lenny Martinez, Enric Mas, Mikel Landa and Guillaume Martin managed to catch up again. In the subsequent descending kilometers towards the finish, Mas took the initiative, with Joao Almeida on his wheel. The two Southern Europeans were the first to start the last climbing section, where Almeida managed to gain some lead with an ultimate acceleration.

And that’s four!
Almeida seemed to be on his way to a stage victory for a moment, but everything came together again in the last kilometer. About twenty people sprinted for the victory. Dorian Godon got an excellent lead-out in the last hundreds of meters, but the Frenchman was quite easily remounted by… Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian managed to win his fourth(!) stage with a strong sprint, adding some extra luster to his overall victory. Godon came second, Martin third.

Pogacar was flanked on the final podium by Mikel Landa (2nd) and Egan Bernal (3rd). It is a big sporting boost for the latter, after he also achieved good final rankings in the Tour Colombia, O Gran Camiño and Paris-Nice earlier this season.

2024-03-24 12:56:00
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