{"id":192085,"date":"2023-02-20T13:29:39","date_gmt":"2023-02-20T13:29:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=192085"},"modified":"2023-02-20T13:29:39","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T13:29:39","slug":"pogacar-sends-a-loud-message-with-vuelta-a-andalucia-domination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2023\/02\/20\/pogacar-sends-a-loud-message-with-vuelta-a-andalucia-domination\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar Sends a Loud Message with Vuelta a Andaluc\u00eda Domination"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is Tadej Poga\u010dar on a mission this year? It\u2019s early in the season \u2013 the Tour de France is more than four months away \u2013 but if the five-stage Vuelta a Andaluc\u00eda is anything to go by, the two-time Tour winner is already hungry for victories. Not only did the 24-year-old Slovenian win three of the race\u2019s five stages but his UAE Team Emirates came within a few inches of a clean sweep, with Oscar Fraile of INEOS Grenadiers nipping Poga\u010dar\u2019s teammate Alessandro Covi in the bunch sprint on the final stage.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Of course, Poga\u010dar easily won the race general classification. It would be natural to think that with such domination in a regional UCI ProSeries race, he would beat mediocre opposition. But that was not the case. He came in 1 min 18 sec ahead of Mikel Landa of Bahrain Victorious. Landa\u2019s teammate Santiago Buttrago was at 1:23, Carlos Rodriguez of INEOS stood at 1:39, Movistar\u2019s Enric Mas was 2:02 adrift and another INEOS rider, the 2020 Giro d\u2019Italia winner Tao Geoghegan Hart, finished 2:47 behind. That is not exactly shabby opposition.<\/p>\n

If Poga\u010dar wanted to send a message, he can be sure that it didn\u2019t fall on deaf ears. If no one else heard it, a rider he has identified as a future Tour de France winner \u2013 an eventual rival, in other words \u2013 Remco Evenepoel, heard it loud and clear.\u00a0 “Stop winning, thank you,” the 2022 UCI Road Race World Champion wrote on Poga\u010dar\u2019s<\/a> Instagram account, in response to the Slovenian\u2019s announcing the 50th win of his short career after his victory in stage 4.<\/p>\n

\"La<\/a>
The last stage of the 2023 Vuelta a Andaluc\u00eda cycling race. \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unfortunately, it seems that the two riders \u2013 perhaps the two best road racers in the world currently \u2013 may not race against each other in a multistage race this year. Evenepoel is currently racing in the UAE Tour this year, which Poga\u010dar decided to skip. And the 23-year-old Soudal-Quick Step rider will race in the Giro d\u2019Italia where he is due to face Poga\u010dar\u2019s Slovenian compatriot Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d<\/a>.\u00a0Poga\u010dar will, of course, skip the Giro to save his energy for the Tour de France and try to revive his reputation as \u201cthe new Eddy Merckx,\u201d an appellation that took a big hit when he lost last year\u2019s Tour to Jumbo-Visma\u2019s Jonas Vingegaard.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s Tour de France<\/a> has lots of climbing, which some commentators have suggested was the reason Evenepoel decided to avoid it. Four of the five stages in the Vuelta a Andaluc\u00eda involved climbs of various difficulty, so we can assume that this was the reason Poga\u010dar chose it over his team\u2019s home race. He has always been an excellent climber but sometimes struggled on the most difficult mountains. And he lost last year\u2019s Tour on two mountains on stage 11, the \u00a0Col de Galibier and the Col du Granon, after being trapped and tricked by Jumbo-Visma.\u00a0\u201cI was a bit short of fuel,\u201d he said afterwards.<\/a><\/p>\n

It looks like he wants to make sure that this doesn\u2019t happen this year. If this early race is an accurate indication of his intent and fitness, this could be another stellar year for Tadej Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is Tadej Poga\u010dar on a mission this year? It\u2019s early in the season \u2013 the Tour de France is more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":192086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[6974,3544,583,3415,4515,6973],"global-categories":[3366],"class_list":["post-192085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-2023-vuelta-a-andalucia","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-road-cycling","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tao-geoghegan-hart","tag-vuelta-a-andalucia","global-categories-cycling"],"yoast_head":"\nPoga\u010dar Sends a Loud Message with Vuelta a Andaluc\u00eda Domination<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is Tadej Poga\u010dar on a mission this year? 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