{"id":197978,"date":"2025-02-24T12:09:43","date_gmt":"2025-02-24T12:09:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=197978"},"modified":"2025-02-24T12:09:43","modified_gmt":"2025-02-24T12:09:43","slug":"pogacar-wins-his-race-while-vingegaard-strikes-late-to-deny-almeida","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2025\/02\/24\/pogacar-wins-his-race-while-vingegaard-strikes-late-to-deny-almeida\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar Wins \u2018His\u2019 Race While Vingegaard Strikes Late to Deny Almeida"},"content":{"rendered":"

This past week was the real start to this year\u2019s road race season with no fewer than three stage races and three top favourites for this year\u2019s Tour de France \u2013 Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG), Jonas Vingegaard (Visma\u2013Lease a Bike) and Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d (Red Bull\u2013BORA\u2013hansgrohe) \u2013 in action. The results were mixed for the fancied riders and other stars, though it\u2019s too early to draw any conclusions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Pog wins Pog\u2019s race<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The biggest race, at least in terms of status, was the UAE Tour, a WorldTour race and the home race for Poga\u010dar\u2019s 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\u2019Italia, Tour de France, and World Road Race champion appeared on the screen.<\/p>\n

And Poga\u010dar was extremely visible. On stage 1, he rode lead-out for his team\u2019s sprinter, Juan Sebasti\u00e1n\u00a0Molano, 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\u2019s two mountain stages. I understand the duty of commentators to constantly remind listeners of the Slovenian\u2019s 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\u2019 Pello Bilbao third, at 1:19, a little reality would have gone a long way.<\/p>\n

Fortunately, that was provided by Poga\u010dar 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 \u2013 that is, winning every race he enters by a country mile \u2013 Poga\u010dar said, “We will see. I don’t race stage races anymore until [the Crit\u00e9rium du] Dauphin\u00e9, so [it\u2019s] 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.”<\/p>\n

You have to love the man\u2019s modesty when all the world is asking him to flaunt his superiority!<\/p>\n

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A post shared by Tadej Pogac\u030car (@tadejpogacar)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n