Since turning professional in 2019, Tadej Pogačar has been collecting wins at a rate of one in every four race days. Just as Britain's Royal Family must think the outside world smells of fresh paint, Pogačar would be forgiven for assuming bike races generally end with a bouquet of flowers and a trip to the podium.
On the Passo del Brocon on stage 17 of the Giro d'Italia, Pogačar had to settle for second place behind escapee Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost), but he still underlined his supremacy by putting another twenty seconds into the rest with a late acceleration. The day, of course, concluded with a fresh maglia rosa atop the podium.
In his press conference on Wednesday evening, Pogačar was asked if he would find bike racing quite as appealing an endeavour if he didn't spend so much of his time winning. What would his relationship with cycling be, for instance, if Tuesday's victory at Monte Pana were the last of his career? Would he feel the same love for the game if he were slogging in the peloton just to finish every day?
"Yesterday I was tired, and I was thinking about retirement, I would be happy with the last victory," Pogačar smiled. "No, that's just a joke. I love riding my bike. But I know for sure that if my level was not like it is now, or if I could not hold on in the gruppetto, then I would probably find something that I could be good at again. But let's hope I have good legs for a few more years…"
The problem certainly won't arise on this Giro, where Pogačar's hegemony is total. On Wednesday, as has been the case throughout the race, everything came so readily to the 25-year-old. His and his UAE Team Emirates squad had hoped to let the day's early break go the distance only for DSM-Firmenich-PostNL's forcing to peg them back. It scarcely mattered.
The maglia rosa tracked an acceleration from Romain Bardet on the Passo Gobbera seemingly out of boredom rather than out of caution. Later, after Ineos had set a steady pace much of the way up the final climb, Pogačar decided to take off on a sortie of his own with 2km to go, extending his overall lead to 7:42 over Daniel Martínez (Bora-Hansgrohe). The third week of his Giro is beginning to feel like a Tour de France training camp.
"The original break was super strong, so we were happy with that. We just wanted to do a good pace on the climbs and take no risks on the downhill, but DSM came and did a crazy downhill," Pogačar said. "On every uphill, people were looking around, and then every downhill was super fast. It was a really strange day."
In truth, it wasn't all that strange. It might just be that Pogačar's dominance has simply skewed his perception of the game. Pogačar's 'slow' pace on the climbs is close to another man's limit. Martínez, Geraint Thomas et al are not competing in the same bike race, they just happen to share the same road.
One of the few questions remaining on his Giro is how many more stages Pogačar will claim before Rome. He already has five to his name, including four in the maglia rosa. He can emulate Eddy Merckx and Learco Guerra by winning a fifth stage win as race leader if the mood strikes him. He hinted here that he had designs on landing the penultimate stage over Monte Grappa.
"Let's see," he said. "Tomorrow is a flat stage, so let's hope [Juan Sebastian] Molano can find some luck in the sprint, then there is a more medium stage, which could be one for a breakaway. Monte Grappa can be an iconic stage and there should also be a lot of Slovenian flags flying on the climb because it's not too far. Let's see."
In the longer term, meanwhile, Pogačar again dismissed the idea of riding the Vuelta a España should he achieve the Giro-Tour double. Instead, he has eyes on another piece of history as he seeks to emulate Merckx and Stephen Roche by landing the Giro, Tour and Worlds in the same season.
"I think the Vuelta for sure not. I have other plans after the Tour," Pogačar said. "We'll go day by day here, and then the big goal for sure is the Tour and the World Championships."
