He punctured, fell and still gave the competition a beating: Tadej Pogacar is the new leader of the Giro

Tadej Pogacar hasn’t been happy hearing that it’s him against everyone in the Tour of Italy. It was the ability he demonstrated in the classics at the beginning of the year that imposed this parasite called favoritism on him. In the first stage of the Giro, Jhonatan Narváez took advantage of the Slovenian’s difficulty in accepting this status to surprise and prevent the UAE Emirates cyclist from wearing pink from the beginning to the end of the competition.

It wasn’t on the first day, it was on the second that Pogacar usurped the leader’s jersey in the general classification and, who knows, he may have established the necessary difference to, in three weeks’ time, remain at the top of the standings. Thanks to the bonuses, there is now a 45 second difference to Geraint Thomas and Daniel Martínez.

The second stage of the Giro ended with a challenge of 11 kilometers to climb. The first category climb was the biggest obstacle of the Tour of Italy so far and Pogacar had the ideal chance to attack. The scenario became less clear when, towards the end, the Slovenian had a puncture. At the moment he requested support for the team car to solve the problem, he ended up falling and falling behind the main group. The INEOS Grenadiers, which led the pack, did not set a strong enough pace to discard Pogacar and the UAE Emirates leader caught the train again.

Towed by Rafal Majka, Pogacar made use of his remaining strength to move the race forward with 4.5 kilometers to go and open up 27 seconds to Daniel Martínez, Geraint Thomas,
Lorenzo Fortunato and Florian Lipowitz.