The dirt road stage of Giro d’Italia 2024 it didn’t cause any problems for the pink jersey Tadej Pogacar. The Slovenian phenomenon, on the eve of this stage, had admitted that his main objective would be to keep himself out of trouble, and so it was. The captain of the UAE Team Emirates in fact, he managed to cross the finish line in Rapolano Terme in the big group, 29 seconds behind the day’s winner Pelayo Sanchez (Movistar). Speaking to our microphones after the stage, the leader of the general classification said that he was happy to have arrived safely at the finish line, and that he had also thought about the possibility of leaving the pink jersey to someone else.
“We did an excellent job – began Tadej Pogacar in an interview after the awards ceremony – it was a tough day from the start and we didn’t want to cause a dangerous breakaway. In the end the breakaway was perfect and we even thought about letting Plapp take the pink jersey, but Ineos wanted to keep him under control. But then the group was very nervous especially when we got closer and entered the dirt roads. It was very hardespecially in the ending and so I’m happy that it’s over and that as a team we had an excellent race.”
The Slovenian rider also admitted that during today’s stage he didn’t think about attacking to save his leg in view of tomorrow’s individual time trial, which could be much more decisive from a general classification perspective. “Today we actually concentrated on staying in the saddle and Save your energy for tomorrow and hope I feel great how I felt today, but I can’t know how I’ll wake up tomorrow. Until today it was all about the team, while tomorrow for me it will be a team without teammates and I will need a good leg to do well. Doing well in the Giro time trials is a goal of mine, and also good training ahead of the summer.”
Still speaking about tomorrow’s time trial, Pogacar admitted that there could be some of his direct rivals for the pink jersey who could do better than him at the finish line in Perugia. “Honestly I think that Geraint Thomas can recover a few seconds if he feels very good and also the others compared to him will have to do their best time trial because it is very long and with a hard climb at the end. You have to be good at finding your own rhythm and there will certainly be some riders who will pay a lot. Tomorrow will be very interesting. I don’t think much about losing or gaining seconds, because in the past I paid for being too stressed thinking about the timesI just want to feel good on the time trial bike.”
A possible fall in today’s dreaded stage, with three difficult dirt sectors, could have affected not only the Giro d’Italia, but also the Tour de France of the 25-year-old from the UAE, who is therefore doubly relieved for the outcome of this hard day. “I certainly had the Tour in my head a little too and I’m happy that everything went well” concluded Pogacar.
