Cycling: Pogacar already dominates the Tour of Catalonia

Like his great rival Jonas Vingegaard two weeks ago on Tirreno-Adriatico, the Slovenian disgusted the competition from the first serious slopes in the Catalan event that he is discovering.

Standing on his pedals six kilometers from the goal in the ascent to Vallter 2000 (11.4 km at 7.4%), he crossed the line, in the rain, with 1 min 23 seconds ahead of the Spaniard Mikel Landa and 1:24 on Russian Aleksander Vlasov.

Lenny Martinez, who tried to counter behind Pogacar, quickly returned to the ranks, but the young Frenchman finished in a good fifth place 1:43 behind Pogacar.

Among the losers of the day are the two leaders of the Visma-Lease a bike team, the American Sepp Kuss (12th at 2:03) and the Belgian Cian Uijtdebroeks (23rd at 2:45).

In the general classification, the damage is already considerable - Pogacar is ahead of Landa by 1:35 - while there is still a lot of mountain left and two other arrivals at the summit, the first on Wednesday towards Port Ainé.

“The conditions were difficult since it started to rain on the penultimate climb. I felt the effects of the altitude too, but I'm happy to have won,” he said.

“Pogi” was seen at the front at several moments, when he, as a joker, took several steps ahead at the start of the stage with his teammate and compatriot Domen Novak – “it was fun” – then at again with three teammates in the descent of the Col de Coubet.

“I felt good, I was going at my own pace,” he commented after his 65th professional victory, the second in four days of racing this season.

Pogacar chose the Tour of Catalonia, which ends Sunday in Barcelona, ​​to prepare for the Tour of Italy (May 4-26), his main objective at the start of the year. He aims to become the first rider since Marco Pantani in 1998 to win the Giro and the Tour de France (June 29-July 21) in the same year.