Tadej Pogacar Dominates First Difficult Climb at Giro d’Italia, Claims Pink Jersey

Tadej Pogacar showed the expected defiant reaction at the Giro d’Italia and gave the competition no chance on the first difficult climb of the tour. After a lot of preparatory work by his team, he took advantage of one of the steep sections on the final climb 4.4 kilometers from the finish and left all his rivals behind.

However, at the end of the 11.8 kilometers up to the monastery at 1142 m, the lead was significantly smaller than in many other appearances by the series winner, with less than 30 seconds for the long solo journey.

Elemental force on the mountain: Pogacar attacks and storms into the pink jersey

Second place after 161 kilometers went to Bora captain Daniel Martinez from Colombia (+0:27), who came back strongly after initial problems in the final and relegated Briton Geraint Thomas (Ineos) to third place.

Giro: Lipowitz shines with top place

Florian Lipowitz (Bora-hansgrohe) presented himself impressively, coming fifth at the same time as his first pursuers, ensuring a fantastic result from a German perspective. Despite helping Martinez, he managed an outstanding performance at his Giro debut.

Defect and fall in the curve: Superstar Pogacar on the ground

For Pogacar it was his first success on a Giro stage, after he had already won eleven stages of the Tour de France and three stages of the Tour of Spain in his career.

“That was always a dream of mine, not many drivers can boast that,” said Pogacar happily. “The fall was nothing serious, I felt good. I didn’t know the climb well, but the team did a great job. The pink jersey was my dream, I tested the legs and now I can look forward to the next few days get some rest.”

The Giro last stopped at the Santuario di Oropa in 2017, when the Dutchman Tom Dumoulin won there on the way to his overall Giro victory. 25 years ago, Marco Pantani made a spectacular appearance on this mountain when he stormed to a solo victory after a defect – almost like Pogacar does today.

Giro: Pogacar ahead in overall standings

In the overall standings, Pogacar is now 45 seconds ahead of Martinez and Thomas, the young Belgian Cian Uijtdebroeks (Visma) and Eine Rubio (Colombia/Movistar) are the next podium candidates, 0:54 minutes behind in the next places. As expected, opening winner Jhonatan Narváez (Ecudaor/Ineos) fell far behind.

Lipowitz improved to 30th place in the overall ranking (+3:06), ahead of him are Georg Steinhauser (Team EF/+2:47) and Maximilian Schachmann (Bora/+1:58).

“I knew that this stage would be difficult, I didn’t have the best feeling, but it’s about Dani Martinez,” said Schachmann, referring to his teammate, who is aiming for a place in the overall standings: “We knew that Tadej would come back strong Come on, that was impressive, congratulations.”

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Giro: First chance for sprinters on Monday

The stage, which started in San Francesco al Campo, began with 90 almost flat kilometers, and after just five kilometers a breakaway group formed. Ineos and UAE took the lead in the field, but Pogacar’s team in particular visibly held back in the first two mountain classifications in the 3rd category, but then confidently prepared the finale with the almost 12 kilometer long climb. The breakaways were swallowed up and four and a half kilometers from the finish, Pogacar pulled away and no one could follow.

The biggest losers of the first test on the mountain were the two co-favorites Nairo Quintana (Colombia, 2014 Giro winner) and Eddie Dunbar (Ireland), who each lost over five minutes and all chances of a place on the podium.

On Monday, the sprinters around Phil Bauhaus and Max Kanter will have their chance for the first time in the 107th Giro on the third stage to Fossano (from 3:00 p.m. in the live ticker).

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2024-05-05 15:12:25
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