An explosive recovery.
Slovenian Tadej Pogacar won on Saturday on the Strade Bianche, an Italian semi-classic race, for his first race of the year.
The leader of the UAE-Emirates team broke away from the rest of the favorites 82 km from the finish to finish alone in the streets of Siena.
A demonstration on a demanding route, where his runner-up, the Latvian Tom Skujins (Lidl-Trek), finished almost three minutes late.
The double winner of the Tour de France (2020, 2021) won for the second time in his career on the Strade Bianche, two years after escaping solo 50 km from the finish.
An ideal way for the 25-year-old Slovenian to kick off a year with an impressive program.
If he has decided to skip the Flandrian classics from his program, “Pogi” will continue the Tour of Italy and the Grande Boucle, where he was dominated during the last two editions by the Dane Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) , before switching to the Paris Olympic Games.
🌊Moses split the Sea, @TamauPogi split Le Tolfe @UAETeamEmirates |
#StradeBianche pic.twitter.com/1Lw1WpKnJJ
— Strade Bianche (@StradeBianche) March 2, 2024
Behind, the other leaders were forced to fight for second place, gleaned on the Santa Caterina climb, the last difficulty of the day, by the rider from the Trek-Segafredo team to the detriment of the Belgian Maxim Van Gils (Lotto Dstny).
The first Frenchman, Benoît Cosnefroy (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) finished sixth, while Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) and Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished eighth and tenth.
Julian Alaphilippe fell earlier in the afternoon and was forced to retire, a week after a previous fall.
After his victory on Saturday, Tadej Pogacar will cut before lining up for Milan-San Remo in two weeks (March 16).
He should then take a break before returning for another Monument of his sport, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, where he fell and injured his wrist last year.