Tadej Pogacar wins the last stage and the general of the Tour of Catalonia

The Tour of Catalonia ended this Sunday with the traditional final stage around Barcelona and its Montjuic hill, climbed six times. And it’s a big hit for Tadej Pogacar: the Slovenian, final winner of the event, won the seventh and final stage, his fourth success of the week. The double winner of the Tour de France, who crushed the competition, achieved new success by dominating the sprint of a strong group, ahead of the French Dorian Godon (Decathlon AG2R) and Guillaume Martin (Cofidis).

On the final circuit, the attacks multiplied, but never put the insatiable 25-year-old Slovenian in difficulty. His teammates tried to take the lead: Marc Soler first broke away from the peloton around thirty kilometers from the finish, then Joao Almeida took a few steps ahead on the last descent. In vain.

This time, the Slovenian from UAE Team Emirates, who had not managed to take off this time, used his burst of speed to make the difference. The number 4 that he showed with his fingers after the finish clearly showed that he didn’t want to give up anything. “It wasn’t the initial plan,” he said immediately after the race, “we wanted to go there for Marc Soler. But I always tried to stay in front and we ended up with a small group. Joao made a great attack on the last little climb, I hoped he could do it, but I’m happy to win in the end…”

Nothing has changed in the general classification. The Slovenian finished in the lead with a very significant lead of more than 3 minutes 30 over his Spanish runner-up Mikel Landa (Soudal Quick Step) and more than 5 over the third, the Colombian Egan Bernal (INEOS Grenadiers). Nothing has changed either for the rest of the ranking despite the small gap that existed for the two other places in the top 5, with four riders, Aleksandr Vlasov (BORA-hansgrohe), Enric Mas (Movistar Team), Chris Harper (Team Jayco AlUla) and the Frenchman Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) held within 6 seconds, the latter finally finishing 7th overall with the best young person’s jersey.