Slovenian cycling superstar wins Tre Valli Varesine
Tadej Pogačar keeps making the most challenging cycling races in the men's category seem like a cakewalk but that does not take away from the amount of hard work he needs to put in to keep dominating.
The Slovenian continued his winning streak at the Italian classic Tre Valli Varesine, which is considered a stepping stone to Il Lombardia, the final monument classic of the season, CE Report quotes The Slovenia Times.
Pogačar won the 200.3-km race with 3,400 metres in cumulative elevation gain on 7 October for the second time in his career after he first added it to his collection of trophies in 2022.
The 27-year-old was not very aggressive at first, letting his team, UAE Emirates-XRG, control the pace and positioning in the main group, and keeping an eye out for any potentially dangerous attacks.
The pace picked up in the final third, when Pogačar and his Mexican teammate Isaac del Toro first made a push that only a few competitors could keep up with. Twenty kilometres to go, the Slovenian switched a gear higher on the downhill and left all the riders behind to win another race with a solo attack. He crossed the finish line 45 seconds ahead of the closest group of chasers.
"The plan was to wait for the final lap and ride a good pace ...It was a really good situation, we were in the front group, we knew that nobody will work with us too much, so when I saw that I had a gap on the downhill, I pushed after the roundabouts on the flat. I knew that even if I 'killed' myself, there is still Isaac in the back, who could win the race from the small group or even solo," Pogačar said after the one-day race.
He added it to his calendar, having promised the organisers to take part in the Tre Valli Varesine again after the 2024 edition, where he was also among the participants, was cancelled due to lashing rain. The autumn classic is a hilly race in northern Italy which was first held back in 1919.
Pogačar now has a total of 107 career victories. This is the 19th victory of the season for him, and he will be chasing win number 20 at the Giro di Lombardia, one of the five toughest one-day races in cycling, on 11 October. He will also be aiming to join Fausto Coppi in winning the race a record five times, having already claimed the last four editions.
"It is a long season now, but Lombardia is this big goal and [I have] extra motivation to do it super good. Also, it is a monument, it is one of the biggest one-day races in the calendar, so the legs should be good for Saturday," the Slovenian said.
The latest win comes after Pogačar won the road race at the European Road Cycling Championships in France on 5 October, and after he became the world road race champion for the second time in a row in Rwanda on 28 September.
The second-best Slovenian in this year's Tre Valli Varesine, Primož Roglič finished outside the top ten. There has been speculation that the 35-year-old, who appears averse to playing the second fiddle in the later stage of his pro career, may leave his team Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in the wake of his teammate Florian Lipowitz's breakthrough and the team's acquisition of the current world and Olympic time trial champion Remco Evenepoel.
"We will see how it is in the next days and weeks, but for sure I'll still be riding the bike next year," he told TNT Sports Cycling when asked about his future. Roglič, who will soon turn 36, won the Tre Valli Varesine in 2019.
Photo: dpa/STA
