The Grand Tour season is open! This Saturday, the peloton set off for the first stage of the Tour of Italy 2024 between Venaria Reale and Torino. Already a very difficult day since the Maddalena mountain, whose summit was located 22 km from the finish, came to sort out the peloton. Thanks to the hard work of his UAE-Emirates team, Tadej Pogacar is already the big winner of this day. Third behind Jhonatan Narvaez (Ineos-Grenadiers) and Maximilian Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), the Slovenian is already creating gaps in the general classification.
Six riders had slipped into today’s breakaway, with the hope of winning the blue jersey for best climber. The French Lilian Calmejane (Intermarché-Wanty), Louis Barré (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) and Nicolas Debeaumarché (Cofidis) were notably in this group. After a big fight, the first finally isolated himself with the Eritrean Amanuel Ghebreigzabhier (Lidl-Trek), before letting go of him and heading alone towards the summit of Colle Maddalena.
Romain Bardet is already cracking
Behind, an acceleration from Tadej Pogacar’s teammates caused damage. Ultra-favorite in this race, with its Slovenian leader, the Emirati team has made the other candidates for final victory suffer enormously, and has already created gaps. Thymen Arensman (Ineos-Grenadiers) and Michael Woods (Israel-Premier Tech) notably gave in, as did Romain Bardet (DSM-Firmenich PostNL). The Frenchman, second in Liège-Bastogne-Liège behind Tadej Pogacar, lost 57 seconds in this inaugural stage on the leading group and is more than a minute behind in the general classification after the bonus game.
At the bottom of the descent, however, an attack from Maximilian Schachmann threw Tadej Pogacar’s tactics into disarray. The German, accompanied in particular by Nicola Conci, Damiano Caruso, Mikkel Honoré and Alex Baudin, first Frenchman to arrive (4th), returned to the leader, Lilian Calmejane. But a final, unlisted climb of one kilometer was still on the program. And it was far too difficult.
4 bonus seconds for Pogacar
From the foot, Tadej Pogacar made an impressive acceleration. Only Jhonatan Narvaez and Julian Alaphilippe (Soudal-Quick Step) managed to follow, even if the Frenchman finally gave in. Unstoppable, the Slovenian caught all the escapes one by one, and tried to isolate himself to race towards victory. However, he did not let go of the Ecuadorian champion, who got stuck in his wheel.
The victory was decided between the two men, and Maximilian Schachmann returned in the short descent. Despite a good sprint, the double winner of the Tour de France had to bow to the power of Jhonatan Narvaez. However, he will console himself with four bonus seconds, and already significant gaps compared to the other favorites for the general classification.
