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Last Saturday the men’s Giro d’Italia began, one of the most important road cycling stage races in the world, and the protagonist of the first three days was undoubtedly the 25-year-old Slovenian Tadej Pogačar, who has been first in the standings since Sunday and therefore wears the pink shirt. Pogačar is considered one of the best cyclists in the world and it is the first time that he has participated in the Giro: people not only expect him to win it, but also that he somehow puts on a show every day. And for the moment, Pogačar is not disappointing the very high expectations that are placed on him.
In the first stage, the race between Venaria Reale and Turin, he attacked (that is, he accelerated trying to break away from the group) on a climb three and a half kilometers from the end, but came third, overtaken in the sprint by the Ecuadorian Jhonatan Narváez and the German Maximilian Schachmann. On the second day, after having punctured a tire and falling, Pogačar quickly caught up with the group and then separated everyone about five kilometers from the finish, arriving alone at the finish line of the Sanctuary of Oropa, in the province of Biella, at 1,150 meters of altitude.
The third stage, the one run on Monday from Novara to Fossano, was even more exceptional, because it was considered a stage for sprinters. Pogačar, already wearing the pink jersey with a 45-second advantage over the second in the general classification, had no need to attack: it was one of those stages in which cyclists aiming for victory in the Giro usually “rest”, in which the group arrives compact and the strongest riders in the sprint battle it out for victory in the final metres. However, about three kilometers from the end, on an uphill stretch before arriving on the flat, the Dane Mikkel Honoré tried to break away from the group and Pogačar, together with the Welshman Geraint Thomas (currently second in the general classification), followed him. Pogačar and Thomas separated Honoré, before being caught 150 meters from the finish line.
Pogačar’s sprint did not bring results in terms of the general classification, but it thrilled the public and above all proved wrong those who thought that the Slovenian had the intention of conserving his energy, winning the Giro d’Italia without overdoing it. In fact, in July Tadej Pogačar will also race the Tour de France, the most important stage race there is, in which so far in four participations he has finished twice in first place and twice in second. Pogačar’s goal is to win the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in the same year, something a cyclist hasn’t done since 1998, when Marco Pantani achieved it.
At the end of the stage the Welsh cyclist Geraint Thomas, who is 38 years old and is trying to keep up with Tadej Pogačar’s pace, wrote on X (Twitter): «Okay boy, you had fun. Can we have a nice, quiet day tomorrow?”
At 25, Tadej Pogačar has already won more than 70 races, including two Tours de France and three of the five so-called monument classics, the one-day races with the most history and importance (he won the Giro di Lombardia three times, twice the Liège-Bastogne-Liège and once the Tour of Flanders). He is a cyclist who gives his best uphill, but who can tend to win any race or stage in which he participates, and who almost always tries to do so. The boldness with which he faces every race has made Pogačar one of the cyclists most loved by fans.
Until a few years ago, cycling had become an uninspiring sport for many. Team Sky (now Ineos Grenadiers) dominated the grand tours in the 1910s, winning seven Tour de France, three Giri d’Italia and two Vuelta a España with its cyclists, with a way of racing based on total control of the race and on risk minimization. Team Sky cyclists rarely set off in solitary actions (for this reason, Chris Froome’s performance at the 2018 Giro d’Italia remained historic) and large stage races were often won because the team, managing the pace of each race, managed to prevent opponents to take initiatives.
In recent years, however, a new generation of runners has changed things a bit, combining the attention to detail of modern cycling (the study of aerodynamics, technological improvements, attention to psychology and nutrition) with an interpretation of sport based however on individual exploits, as happened more often in historical cycling.
Tadej Pogačar signs autographs wearing the pink jersey, obtained after the second stage (ANSA/LUCA ZENNARO)
Tadej Pogačar is perhaps the main exponent of this new way of understanding elite cycling, but with him there is the Danish Jonas Vingegaard, who won the last two Tours de France just ahead of Pogačar, and then the Belgian Remco Evenepoel, world champion in 2022 in line and in 2023 in time trial, and finally the Belgian Wout Van Aert and the Dutch Mathieu van der Poel, capable of winning very different races, even in cyclocross (a discipline very different from road cycling) .
In the last two years, especially when he lost the challenge to his opponent Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France, several commentators have wondered if Pogačar is sometimes too aggressive, if he doesn’t exaggerate by always wanting to attack, wasting energy unnecessarily. On Monday, upon arrival in Fossano, the Slovenian could have easily remained in the group, but instead he chose to expose himself and respond to Honoré’s attack (a cyclist who cannot compete with him for the general classification). Honoré himself, a few days before the start of the Giro, said in an interview that it would be incredible for him to face Pogačar, defining him as “simply a kid who has fun on a bicycle: it’s nice to race against someone like that”.
