Tadej Pogacar soared over the Tour of Catalonia.
On all terrains.
He won the mountain stages and the sprint.
4 stage victories which allowed him to push back the Spaniard Mikel Landa (Soudal-Quick Setp) to 3'41'' and the Colombian Egan Bernal (Ineos) to 5'3'' at the end of a dream week .
During which, alone in his world, the Slovenian was even faster than the motorcycles.
Thus, on Saturday, the leader of the UAE Team Emirates was flying towards his third stage victory on the slopes of the Collada de Sant Isidre, when slowed down in his dizzying race, he hit the top box of a motorcycle hampered by the presence of spectators to show its impatience, trying to make its way to find some air and give free rein to an implacable domination.
During the last Tour de France, in a mano a mano with Jonas Vingegaard, the duo was hampered by motorcycles at the top of Joux Plane (14th stage).
“I have never been so comfortable on the bike
,” summed up Tadej Pogacar with a smile that never leaves him.
Tadej Pogacar (25 years old) impresses.
And sees, in its wake, questions piling up.
That of insolent domination.
Like when he stunned the Strade Bianche on March 2, with a fantastic solo breakaway of 81 kilometers... Cycling has suffered too much from doping cases to move forward with its eyes closed.
After a perfect week and an ideal start to the season (9 days of racing, 5 victories and a 3rd place during Milan-San Remo), the
“Little Cannibal”
, a nickname inherited from an insatiability comparable to that of Eddy Merckx, sent a clear message to the competition who, this year, will strive to string together the Tour of Italy (May 4-26) and the Tour de France (June 29-July 21).
To find traces of a victorious double the same year on the Giro and the Grande Boucle, we have to go back to Marco Pantani in 1998…