Pogacar crushes rivals on opening Tour of Switzerland stage

Despite not having raced since early May, Tadej Pogacar demonstrated he is already in remarkable pre-Tour de France form Image: AFP cycling Pogacar crushes rivals on opening Tour of Switzerland stage Today 04:24 am JST Today | 06:46 am JST 0 Comments SONDRIO, Italy World champion Tadej Pogacar sent out an ominous warning to his Tour de France rivals with a jaw-dropping dominant victory on the opening stage of the Tour of Switzerland on Wednesday. Despite there being four more days of mostly mountainous racing to come this week, Pogacar effectively ended all suspense halfway through the opening 144km stage, which started and finished in Sondrio in northern Italy. After his UAE Team Emirates squad had pushed the pace over the first climb of the day, Pogacar simply rode off the front of the peloton at the foot of the second with 71.

5km still to go, quickly catching and passing the last remaining breakaway rider, Fredrik Dversnes. None of his potential overall challengers even attempted to follow Pogacar's acceleration and he looked surprised when he turned around to see that he was already alone. "This was definitely not the plan, but somehow it worked," said Pogacar.

The four-time Tour de France winner decided to push on and finished 2min 14sec ahead of Ecuador's Richard Carapaz in second with Italian Andrea Bagioli coming home third at 2:29 and the rest of the potential overall contenders losing more than four minutes. "We tried something, and from then on, we just went," he added. "I didn't have radio at that time, so I didn't know what's going on in the back, so I just kept riding hard.

Once I knew the gap is quite big, I could set into the rhythm and try to hold it to the finish." It was a typically swashbuckling demonstration from Pogacar, who has made a habit of launching long range winning moves, but usually in one-day classics -- such as his 80km-long solo attack at Strade Bianche. Never before had he made such an early move in a week-long stage race.

Despite not having raced since early May, Pogacar demonstrated he is already in remarkable pre-Tour de France form. This was his 10th victory in only 12 days of racing this year. Having watched from afar as two-time Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard completed the Grand Tour set last month with Giro d'Italia success, Pogacar produced a timely reminder that he remains the man to beat at the Grande Boucle.

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