The 2024 Giro d’Italia Look Back: I would say that you could call the 2024 Italian Grand Tour a demonstration of near total domination by Tadej Pogačar. Six stage wins, the pink jerseys for 20 days, the KOM classification and only four seconds short of a ten minute final overall victory. At times it looked like the Slovenian was playing with the other riders and that the Giro was a warm up for the Tour de France.
The Tour won’t be so easy
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The Giro win was on the cards form the start
Before the start, many predicted a ‘landslide’ victory for the Slovenian. Pogačar is one of the two top Grand Tour riders of the moment, yes, Primoz Roglič and (maybe) Remco Evenepoel are also contenders, but Jonas Vingegaard and Pogačar sit at the top of the three-week stage race hierarchy. If we look at who Pogačar beat in the Giro, the result was to be expected. Second placed Daniel Felipe Martinez has won shorter stage races: Critérium du Dauphiné in 2020, Itzulia Basque Country in 2023 and Volta ao Algarve em Bicicleta this year, but before this Giro his best finish in a Grand Tour was 5th in the Giro of 2021, apart from that he was never inside the Top-20. Compared to Pogačar in Grand Tours, he usually finished around two hours down on the Slovenian. INEOS Grenadiers’ ‘old campaigner’ Geraint Thomas is a Tour de France winner and has also finished second and third in both the Tour and the Giro and has had a long and illustrious career, riding the track, one-day Classics, winning the shorter stage races and of course the Tour de France. But at 38-years of age, Geraint Thomas is probably past his best, although third was better than 99% of the peloton.
Thomas and Martinez were the best of the ‘humans’
Pogačar is on a higher level than the mere mortals he was up against in Italy. But is it a true guide to the Slovenian’s form? Visma | Lease a Bike team manager, Richard Plugge doesn’t think so. “Only in the Tour will we see what his real level is.” As we saw, the Giro winner didn’t have many battles on his hands during the three weeks. There were occasional flashes of defiance from other riders, but the Pogačar behemoth would chew them up and spit them out. When he made his attacks, the others could only watch and try to limit their losses.
There wasn’t much anyone could do
Pogačar had to bring his ‘A’ game to the battle on four occasions: On the mountain time trial to Perugia, where he had to do match the TT specialists, or stay close to them, on the flat, then annihilate them on the uphill final kilometres. Then the mountain stage to Livigno, where he attacked 14 kilometres out to catch and pass Nairo Quintana to win the Queen stage. In the flat time trial to Desenzano del Garda, it was very likely that he would lose to Filippo Ganna, those 29 seconds lost to the big Italian were of no importance, but the time he put into his competitors was: 45 seconds on Thomas and more on the others. Of course the ‘icing on the cake’ was stage 20, which he really didn’t have to win, but the way he did it was probably more for his own enjoyment than anything else. The only ‘fly in the ointment’ would be not winning the first stage and wearing the Maglia Rosa from start to finish.
Apart from Stage 1, everything went to plan
UAE Team Emirates boss, Mauro Gianetti, thinks that there is more to come from his man and suggested that Pogačar may have been saving himself for the Tour. After the second Tour win by Jonas Vingegaard, the UAE team had a good look at what could be done over the winter make improvements. To repeat an over used quote from the Sky team; the UAE team were looking for ‘marginal gains’. Changes were made: Pogačar now works with a new Spanish nutritionist and is said to be 1 kilo lighter than last year. His bike and position have also been adjusted, he now rides a slightly smaller frame with shorter cranks. Last year he went from 172.5mm cranks to 170’s, then over the winter he went 5mm shorter to 165mm. He pedals faster and is now more aerodynamic. He has moved up a tooth on his big chainring to 55 teeth with a 40 tooth inner. The team also uses chainrings made the Italian brand Carbon-Ti. The most striking change is that he no longer works with coaching wizard, Inigo San Millan, but is now coached by Javier Sola. It has been said that due to his mountain time trial beating by Vingegaard on the road to Combloux by 1:38, Pogačar has been training 20% more on his TT bike this year. Gianetti told Het Nieuwsblad: “Tadej has done many more exercises off his bike to be able to maintain a position on his time trial bike where he can use as much power as possible. We have also improved the bikes, helmets and suits.”
Ganna had the edge on the flat
The win in the mountain TT to Perugia and his second place in the flat time trial behind Ganna, show how much work both the team and Pogačar have done to improve his one ‘Achilles heel’ going into the Tour de France. The Slovenian’s climbing prowess was never in question in the Giro d’Italia. When he was unleashed on a climb, there was no one who could live with him uphill in Italy, but how will that compare to the likes of Vingegaard, Roglič and Evenepoel?
Beating these guys might not be as easy
Marco Pantani was the last rider to ‘Do the Double’ in 1998. Pogačar said he wanted to emulate the Italian and hoped he wouldn’t have to push himself to the limit every day in the last week, which he didn’t and his morale looked to be sky high in Rome. His opponents will be fresh at the start of the Tour de France, but they are also coming back from injury, especially in the case of Vingegaard, who would probably have been his biggest rival, just like the last two years. Then there are Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglič, both are at a higher level than anyone at the Giro…
Bring on the Tour, but Pogačar beware!
The Tour will be different
# Thanks to WielerFlits and ProCyclingStats for the facts, figures and inspiration. #
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