BRAZILIAN. “He wins quite often. With him, the opposition is like youth,” said Brian Holm, former professional and sports director for the Danish radio station DR.
“At the Tour de France, nobody threatened him, and at the Gire he even played with his opponents in places. Then came the World Cup. When he attacked, everyone stopped and said he was crazy. And then he won. Nobody laughs anymore. If he had started at the Vuelta, I think he would have won that one too,” the well-known expert thinks.
The Slovenian rider will not give up and will add more victories to his account even in October. A few days ago, he had already dominated the classic Giro dell’Emilia after a sovereign solo in the rainbow jersey. He won by almost two minutes.
It has not yet finished worse than the first one in Lombardy
On Saturday, he can close a great year with another victory. The classic Around Lombardy is waiting for him. The last of the monuments and classics that probably fit his character.
It hasn’t happened yet that he hasn’t won here. He started for the first time in the 2021 season and won immediately. He repeated the same result a year or two later.
He drives like he has no limits. When he jumps on the pedals, opponents usually give up and don’t even try to follow. At the competition in Zurich, some opponents tried it, but they all burned quickly. No one can keep up with his speed.
“I’m afraid we can’t do anything against him,” said Bauke Mollema, the winner of Okolo Lombardska five years ago. “I watched the end of the race and saw later that Pogačar and others were managing the climb of Sormano a few minutes faster than me. The way Tadej drives is amazing.”
“It will be Pogačar against the rest of the peloton,” thinks Nelson Powels.
It seems that no one can threaten the Slovenians at the moment and it would be a big surprise if he doesn’t win. Primož Roglič pulled out of the race, Jonas Vingegaard closed the season a long time ago, and Remco Evenepoel is at the start, but he seems tired after a long season.
The Visma team also say they need to set “reasonable goals” for the final big classic. “We have to be realistic, although we have to aim high. But we don’t have a favorite among us, and we have to admit,” said Visma in a press release.
It has more wins than 10 teams
Pogačar has won 24 times this season. This is more than elite sprinters such as Mark Cavendish, Peter Sagan, and André Greipel were able to achieve in a year in their best seasons.
The entire RedBull Bora Hansgrohe team has the same number of wins (24) this year. Pogačar himself has more than ten teams from the elite WorldTour category.
His season is like a dream come true. Not only has he been winning since March, but his form does not drop at the end of the season. Instead of the opposite.
He has won six of the last eight tournament days. The two occasions he did not win were the Montreal GP classic, where he finished seventh, and the Tre Valli Varesine, which had to be abandoned early in the week due to heavy rain and dangerous conditions. It is true that he would win there as well.
On Saturday, Pogačar can equal the historic record of Faust Coppi, who also won Okolo Lombardska four times in a row.
In addition, the Slovenian would get his seventh victory at the monumental classic and reach the level of legends like Tom Boonen or Fabian Cancellara, who were personalities of the classics.
While working on it throughout their career, the Slovenians needed four years for six victories. He also won the Liege – Bastogne – Liege monument this year.
Around Lombardy will start on Saturday at 10.40am. The race is broadcast live by Eurosport 2.
2024-10-11 21:10:00
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