Who else but them two? They were each the favorites of the event in which they entered and they assumed this status. Primoz Roglic and Tadej Pogacar respectively won the final victory over Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico on Sunday March 13. Already well above the fray of climbers since 2020, the two Slovenian monsters warned the competition from the first real tests, in view of the Grand Tours of this season.
When Roglic gradually built up his success in the Race to the Sun to enter management mode during the last two stages, Pogacar, like a good cannibal, decided not to leave a single crumb to his opponents in Italy, finishing with two victories of stages and 1’52” ahead of his runner-up Jonas Vingegaard in the general classification.
The winner of the last two Tours de France was not content to wait for the final sprint to afford the queen stage of Tirreno, with the double ascent of Monte Carpegna. He took off on the final climb to win solo with more than a minute ahead of everyone.
He’s the boss: Tadej Pogacar leaves the competition no chance on Monte Carpegna, and rushes towards the final victory! #TirrenoAdriatico
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We expected to find the ruthless leader of UAE Emirates in 2022, but perhaps not with such an appetite, he who had already fed well in 2021 with 13 victories, including the general of the Tour de France, Liège -Bastogne-Liège and the Tour of Lombardy. Tadej Pogacar is quite simply making his most thunderous start to the season among the pros, with already seven successes, all in the World Tour (in 14 days of racing).
“I never think I’m unbeatable, even when I’m first. I always think someone can come back, pick me up and attack. I’m always careful, I never underestimate anyone“, he tried to qualify at a press conference on Saturday. The question arises, however, as the native of Klanec is so insurmountable, especially in the stage races. He has won seven of the last eight races of this kind in which he took part, failing only in the Tour of the Basque Country the previous season (3rd behind Roglic and Vingegaard).
The overpower of Pogacar is such that it ended up giving back its humanity to Primoz Roglic. If he did not crush Paris-Nice as much as his compatriot looked down on Italy, the former ski jumper gave the impression of not having had to give everything to raise his arms in Nice. It must be said that his two falls, which cost him the laurels at the gates of the coronation a year ago, must have cooled him.
Roglic made the measure and was able to count on the power of the Jumbo-Visma. It was by fleeing from the end of the first stage, with his two teammates Christophe Laporte and Wout Van Aert, that he was able to take more than twenty seconds over all his main competitors. Gap that he increased in his favorite exercise on Wednesday, the time trial, before eying the climbers, letting them come back after putting them in the red on the slopes of the Col de Turini on Saturday. The scare of the last day, following the breakaway of Simon Yates, was circumscribed by the work of Wout van Aert, to finally keep this yellow jersey on the shoulders of its leader in Nice.
After expanding its kingdom in recent seasons, Slovenia is consolidating its foundations. Less than four months from the Tour de France, one wonders who could challenge the top step of the podium on the Champs-Elysées to the two Slovenians. Among the recent Grand Tour winners, Egan Bernal still has many months of rehabilitation ahead of him after his accident at the start of the season. And the Olympic champion Richard Carapaz is very far from the mark for the moment since he has not finished neither Tirreno-Adriatico, nor the Etoile de Bessèges, nor the Tour de la Provence.
There were high hopes around Remco Evenepoel, but his first test over three weeks in the last Giro, concluded by a retirement before the 18th stage, and his difficulties displayed from the first of two climbs of Monte Carpegna on Saturday on Tirreno, l have been pushed into the background. As for Jonas Vingegaard, dolphin of Pogacar on the last Big Loop, he was still the closest to the Slovenian in Italy, but still far from his wheel. And he was only able to express himself last year on the Tour after the abandonment of Roglic, his leader at the start who should still be in 2022.