The Giro d’Italia belongs to Pogacar
(Marco Bonarrigo) Great business it had to be, great undertaking it was. 36.4 kilometers from Bassano del Grappa, the finish line of the 20th and penultimate stage of Giro 107 before the Roman catwalk, Tadej Pogacar waved goodbye to his colleagues for the sixth time and flew to the top of Monte Grappa to seal another feat, the sixth, or his first Giro d’Italia. No one was able to resist him, not even for a few seconds: at the summit the Slovenian had two minutes clear on Tiberi and Martinez (with O’Connor and Thomas further behind), on the descent and in the final stretch (despite wasting time repeatedly greeting the fans, Slovenians and not) Pogi even increased his lead to 2’07” to which bonuses must be added.
Tadej Pogacar therefore actually won won his first Giro d’Italia by a landslide with 9’57” of advantage over the Colombian Daniel Martinez (an abyss), 10’26” on Geraint Thomas who returns to the podium for the second time after last year, 12’09” over Ben O’Connor and 12’52” over Antonio Tiberi, very good, who won the white jersey for best youngster: at 23 years old she is our most great promise together with Giulio Pelizzari, also attacking Grappa, who is a very talented and generous class of 2003.
Pogacar is the second Slovenian to win the Giro d’Italia (one year after Primoz Roglic). An athlete hadn’t won six stages since 2004 (Petacchi, who was a sprinter), and it had been 51 since five had been won in the pink jersey. Pogi won his third grand tour after the two Tours in 2020 and 2021. «Thanks to everything and everyone and to those who organized and also to Italy – said the Slovenian – perhaps this undertaking was not necessary but I wanted it for myself and to thank my team for the enormous work done. On the final climb I gave a water bottle that I had just taken from the masseur to a child who was cheering on the side of the road: I thought about how happy something like that would have made me if it had been done to me and he didn’t think about it for a moment.”
