Tadej Pogačar dominates the Tour of Catalonia, notching his second stage win in a row

Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogačar dominates the WorldTour Tour of Catalonia stage race. After three stages, he has already won two stages and has a lead of almost two and a half minutes over the second Spaniard Mikel Landa!

Pogačar shows his strength

The duel between the two arch rivals Tadej Pogačar and Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard is coming up at this year’s Tour de France, when the young Slovenian will have a “bounce back” at the Giro D’Italia. This year he plans to be the first cyclist since 1998 to win the double.

Pogačar is showing similar dominance at this race as Vingegaard did at Tirreno-Adriatico, where he dominated the entire race and also scored two stage wins in a row. Pogačar has already won the Strade – bianche this year and finished 3rd on the recent Milan – San Remo monument after an unsuccessful breakaway.

The Slovenian dominated yesterday’s stage as is his custom after a solo breakaway, finishing 1:22 minutes ahead of a pair of chasers, Spain’s Mikel Landa and Russia’s Alexander Vlasov. Czech cyclist Jan Hirt finished the stage in 17th place, almost two and a half minutes behind.

He showed his strength in the traditionally very difficult climb with about 11 kilometres to go, with an average gradient of 7.4 percent. And once again he showed that he is unrivalled in the hills. There are only a handful of cyclists in the current peloton who can keep up with him on the climbs.

The third stage was 176.7 kilometres long and was again a mountain stage. This time Mikel Landa, the second man in the standings, tried to attack. But the Slovenian had no problem at all to react. And on the contrary, it was he who managed to get back on and “snknknul” Landa on the second day.

In today’s stage he gained another 48 seconds on the Spaniard and increased his lead over the Spaniard in the standings to 2 minutes and 27 seconds. Pogačar has two stage wins to his name after his second place in the opening stage. And he’s going for the win in the 103rd edition of this race. And he has sent a clear message to Vingegaard that he is at least as well prepared for this season as the Danish cyclist.

Tour of Catalonia – Stage 3 (176.7km)

1. 1. Tadej Pogačar (Slovi./UAE Emirates) 4:34:25, 2nd Mikel Landa (Sp./Soudal Quick- Step) -48, 3rd Antonio Tiberi (It./Bahrain Victorious) -1:03…….29. Jan Hirt (CZ/Soudal Quick- Step) -5:12
2. Overall standings
3. 1. Tadej Pogačar 13:38:12, 2nd Mikel Landa – 2:27, 3rd Alexander Vlasov -2:55…….31. Jan Hirt -9:04

Source: UCI, Tour of Catalonia