Pog wins Pog’s race
The biggest race, at least in terms of status, was the UAE Tour, a WorldTour race and the home race for Pogačar’s team. It was, as expected, no contest. It was more of an exhibition and a love fest than a contest, with commentators using all their superlatives whenever the reigning Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, and World Road Race champion appeared on the screen.
And Pogačar was extremely visible. On stage 1, he rode lead-out for his team’s sprinter, Juan Sebastián Molano, who had just crashed and had to drop out. He then rode 105 km of the flat 160 km stage 5 in a breakaway and won the race’s two mountain stages. I understand the duty of commentators to constantly remind listeners of the Slovenian’s greatness, but in a race in which the talented (but overmatched) Lidl-Trek rider Giulio Ciccone was his toughest rival, finishing second a whopping 1:14 behind, with Bahrain-Victorious’ Pello Bilbao third, at 1:19, a little reality would have gone a long way.
Fortunately, that was provided by Pogačar himself in the post-race interview. Looking and sounding tired after a 7.8 km solo on the ascent of Jebel Hafeet (10.9 km @ 6.7%) in the Mideast heat, he did not leap onto his own bandwagon. Asked on Eurosport if he sees himself dominating the rest of the season as he dominated the UAE Tour – that is, winning every race he enters by a country mile – Pogačar said, “We will see. I don’t race stage races anymore until [the Critérium du] Dauphiné, so [it’s] time to switch a little bit the mind to one-day Classics, try to enjoy, hope for good legs, and we will see the results.”
You have to love the man’s modesty when all the world is asking him to flaunt his superiority!
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Vingo leaves it late, but takes it
The 2.Pro-level Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta had the highest concentration of Grand Tour winners per capita last week. In addition to Vingegaard and Roglič, the Dane’s Visma superstar teammate Wout van Aert was in the race as was Pogačar’s teammate and likely future Grand Tour winner João Almeida. That is a lot of quality. But it began with a whimper, not a bang, when most of the peloton followed lead cars out of a roundabout and down the wrong street with 700 km left to ride. Fortunately, no one was hurt. The stage was annulled, and the rest of the race came off without a problem.
The race was also regarded as a contest between the two dominant teams in the peloton, those of Pogačar and Vingegaard – at least, the UAE Team Emirates–XRG riders appeared to treat the race as a mano-a-mano with Visma–Lease a Bike. And going into the final stage, they held three of the top four GC spots, with 20-year-old Jan Christen leading teammate Almeida by 0:04, and 21-year-old António Morgado sitting fourth at 0:14. Vingegaard was in sixth, at 0:20, and questions were being asked after Christen and Almeida left him eating their dust on the summit finish of the Altro Da Foia (8.5 km @ 5%, with a steep final ramp of 9%) on race’s first mountain stage. Christen won the stage, just ahead of Almeida, with Vingegaard finishing a well-beaten sixth, 10 seconds adrift.
But the 28-year-old Dane was just waiting for his moment. That came on the final-stage 19.6 km time trial ending with a summit finish atop the short but steep Alto de Malhao (2.6 km @ 9.8%). Vingegaard showed that he was already in fine form, beating teammate Wout van Aert by 11 seconds, Almeida by 31 seconds and young Christen by 1:17. Point, set, and match to Visma–Lease a Bike, at least for now. Vingegaard won his first race of the season by 15 seconds over Almeida, with Laurens De Plus (INEOS Grenadiers) finishing third, at 24 seconds. As for Roglič, he finished 12th in the time trial, 50 seconds down on Vingegaard, and ranked eighth in the final GC standings, at 53 seconds.
“I’m, of course, very happy. It was a very good day for me, for the team,” V
ingegaard said after the race. “Of course, I’m very happy to take the overall victory and take the revenge from the other day. So, of course, I’m super happy and proud. My daughter said earlier today that I had to win today, so that gave me extra motivation to win for her.”
And at the Ruta del Sol…
The week’s third stage race, the Vuelta a Andalucia Ruta Ciclista Del Sol (better known as the Ruta del Sol), was notable because of the presence of Q.36’s leader Tom Pidcock in the race. It was his kind of race, hilly and punchy, but he rode the first stage badly, leaving himself little in the tank for the end of the 162.6 km course from Torrox to Cueva de Nerja. He could do no better than eighth place, 39 seconds behind the winner, Maxim van Gills (Red Bull–BORA–hansgrohe), and 32 seconds behind the eventual race winner, Pavel Sivakov (UAE Team Emirates–XRG. That gap would prove decisive.
Pidcock won the second stage in an uphill sprint against non-sprinters, finished fifth in the stage 2 bunch sprint, won by veteran Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility), and was not a factor in the final two stages. His third-place finish in the GC, 26 seconds behind Pavel Sivakov, must have been very disappointing. Sivakov did not win a stage, but his stage 1 advantage made the difference in the outcome. Sivakov’s victory in Andalucia, following Pogačar’s in the UAE, puts the team at 12 victories for the year already, well ahead of Soudal–Quick-Step’s seven wins, four of them from sprinter Tim Merlier. Visma–Lease a Bike riders have only four, but they are just getting started.
