Tadej Pogacar is one of the favorites to dominate today’s Giro stage. The Slovenian is in the lead in the general classification, but is not thinking about winning at all today.
On the contrary, Pogi hopes to survive today. Strange, because of the gravel strips, today’s stage is compared to the Strade Bianche. Pogacar has already won the prestigious race twice in his career. . “It’s not, to be honest,” he told the assembled press just before the start.
“It is not a fun stage, but I mean that well. It is a stage in which we have to be very concentrated, just like in the stage to Lucca. We have to stay together as a team and attack the gravel sectors together.”
Another story
You would think that Pogacar would use a stage like today to buy his opponents some extra seconds, but nothing could be further from the truth. “It will be a completely different story. You think in advance about the gravel, but you can also drive on bad roads in the lead-out to such a strip. A crash can always happen, as happened to Laporte. Then you can already lying on the ground before you even get to the gravel. We have to pay close attention to that.”
“I am not going to change anything on my bike. In Strade Bianche we only ride with slightly wider tires and slightly less tire pressure, but in Strade there are many more gravel kilometers. I am not going to change much on my bike for this ride.”
