From the rays of sunshine it turned to torrential rain in the Volta. From the beach of Mataró to the high mountains. From the soft breeze to the uncomfortable wind. The race started at sea level and ended up touching the sky, at 2,146 meters. The good weather turned cold. It wasn't the only force of nature that hit the first high finish of the race. Tadej Pogacar did not wait to leave his mark in the Catalan round, in which he debuts. In Vallter 2000, the Slovenian hit the ceiling with an attack so devastating that it could almost be decisive.
The leader of the UAE did not disappoint those who were rubbing their hands over his participation in Catalonia. He doesn't fail. The harder it is, the better for him and the worse for others. Unchained, he did not allow any rival to catch his wheel. And he won the stage, and you can almost say that he began to decide the overall. The green franji jersey, which Schultz (Israel) wore on Tuesday due to a miscalculation, has a majestic owner.
The Slovenian took out his thorn. If the finish line of Sant Feliu de Guíxols was short for Pogacar in the previous run, the Vallter pass was long for its opponents. An unequal fight, a persecution against a chosen one. Little to do. It doesn't matter that it was his first contact with a large port (11 kilometers), which until now had only been on the hills of the Strade Bianche and on slopes like the Poggio of Milan-Sanremo. When the road got steep, the Slovenian destroyed the group of favorites.
The attack of the double Tour champion was a matter of time. No one doubted it in the morning, as an irrefutable fact and he reached 6.5 km from the summit. Almeida prepared the ground for him and he accelerated. He was not witnessed on television but seeing the trail he left behind gives an idea of the mess he organized.
Vallter is usually a port with few differences. Last year Ciccone, Roglic and Evenepoel arrived together. In 2019, Adam Yates entered leading a group of four riders. In fact, the maximum distance they had gained is the 16 seconds with which Juan Fernández surpassed Sean Kelly in 1986, in the debut of the ascension. Well, Pogacar left invalid that belief that it is not a climb to make big gaps. With his attack, he opened a margin of 1m22s over Mikel Landa (Soudal), the only one who rebelled against the evidence, the only one who did not want to remain with his arms crossed in the face of Pogacar's umpteenth exhibition.
After just two stages, the leader now only has three rivals less than two minutes away in the general classification, and one is his teammate João Almeida. The fifth, Lenny Martinez, is already 2m01s behind. A world. The one between Pogacar and the rest when Vingegaard and the other magnificent ones are not there.
And the Slovenian, he said, was affected by the change in weather. “He saw the clouds and thought that we could avoid the water until the finish line but no. It has become winter. The conditions have been difficult and the climb has been very hard. Maybe because of the altitude it was difficult for me,” he explained at the finish line, at more than 2,000 meters. But not even the rain and the cold could tarnish his superiority. Kuss and Uijtdebroeks, Visma's trump cards, suffered a setback, as did Enric Mas, Nairo Quintana and Einer Rubio, who suffered a setback to their aspirations.
Starting today, Pogacar will be the leader, and will not be able to make jokes and tricks like yesterday, when he got a few meters ahead of his teammate and compatriot Novak and hid to relieve himself. “No one wanted to shoot and Domen and I have set a strong pace. But no one came. When we had gone about 200 meters, we stopped to pee. The platoon didn't know where we were. It’s been fun,” he laughed at his prank. That was before he hit the ceiling.
