After two years of starting his season at – and winning – the UAE Tour, Tadej Pogačar's switch back to Spain to kick off his 2023 campaign is already going better than expected.
Few would have bet against the Slovenian winning both the Clásica Jaén Paraíso Interior and the mountainous opener at the Vuelta a Andalucía, but the 24-year-old has completely dominated the first two days of his racing season.
After going solo with 36km to go on Monday, he repeated the trick at Wednesday's Andalucía opener, leaving his rivals behind on the final climb with 12km remaining. With a 38-second cushion to the chasing group in Santiago de la Espana, he has now taken two wins by a combined margin of 87 seconds.
Speaking after the stage, even Pogačar said he didn't expect to start the year so strongly.
"I'm a little surprised by my form," he said. "I knew that I was good, but I could not expect to have already won two races."
In the overall standings, Pogačar already leads a group containing Carlos Rodríguez (Ineos Grenadiers) and Bahrain Victorious pair Mikel Landa and Santiago Buitrago by 38 seconds.
Rodríguez's teammate Tao Geoghegan Hart lies next at a mammoth 1:38 down, while Enric Mas (Movistar) – among the chasers but unlucky to suffer a mechanical while chasing on the climb – is at 1:39.
Along with Movistar, Pogačar's UAE Team Emirates team had worked on the front of the peloton for much of the 179km stage through the hills of the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas Natural Park. The squad then pushed the pressure up the day's final climb, a 10.6km run up Despiernacaballas that averaged 5.8%.
The end result saw Pogačar briefly left among an elite lead group before deciding to launch his move. Buitrago was the only man able to stick with the acceleration, and even then, only for 500 metres. Soon enough, the Colombian dropped back and Pogačar was away, building a 40-second by the top of the mountain, 4km later.
"Today once again the teamwork was great, we did a nice job and our guys led me to the last climb at a very, very high pace which I really liked," he said. "The climb was steep; I saw the moment to attack, and I enjoyed the road to the finish."
Now, Pogačar faces four more stages through hilly terrain, though on paper none seem quite as challenging as the opener.
Stage 2 to Alcalá la Real features an unpaved closing kilometre at 11.5%, stage 3 to Alcalá de los Gazules brings a finishing climb of 3km at 3.7%, while the stage 4 finish at Iznájar concludes with a 900-metre stretch at 5.8%.
Nothing that should overly concern Pogačar, then, given the form he has displayed this week, though the final 40km of stage 4 comes packed with hills – prime ambush territory if anyone can outmuscle a UAE squad featuring Tim Wellens, Alessandro Covi, Rafał Majka, and George Bennett.
"Concerning the leadership of the general classification of the Vuelta a Andalucía, it's going to be really difficult to defend the leader's jersey until the end," Pogačar said, perhaps modestly given his advantage.
"Because there will be some tricky stages, but I will be able to rely on such a strong team that makes me confident I can reach this goal."
