There are no two without three. It is a saying of the rich proverb, which is so often embraced by cycling, a sport of oral tradition. The difficult thing is to bring it to reality. The complicated thing is to make sense of the sentence, which are not empty words. Therein lies the conflict. Unless your name is Tadej Pogacar. Then everything seems simpler than it really is. The Slovenian only knows how to win in 2023. He has put on a number three times in the morning and three times he has ended up raising his arms in the afternoon.
Andalusia and Jaén are becoming their private garden. There he won the Jaén Paraíso Classic on Monday. He repeated on Wednesday in the first stage of the Ruta del Sur to dress as leader. He did it again this Thursday on the second day to further increase his overall advantage.
Pogacar is untouchable. Nothing stops you. He doesn't care what they put in front of him, the stage, the route or the ground of the road. He dominated on the dirt roads between the olive trees on the way to Baeza in the classic. He destroyed the peloton on the bumpy, starry and poorly paved road of the Despiernacaballos pass. And he was also the strongest on the hard ramps of the paving that leads to the Fortress of La Mota in Alcalá la Real.
This time, the UAE leader had more rivals than in his first two victories. Once again he was surrounded by the same trio of Spaniards: the expert Landa, the mature Mas and the beardless Carlos Rodríguez. And in the final climb Pogacar was not the first to make a move. Enric Mas tried it, who had a scare yesterday going down and lost more than a minute. The Movistar leader had been well explained about the last half kilometer. He stuck to the outside of the road to the castle, where it was best to pedal, and left the rest behind.
To all except Pogacar, who through the center, went to his own. The two side by side, as in Il Lombardia or in the Giro dell'Emilia, in October.
The winner of two Tours was not impressed, he had set a pace and maintained it even on the last slope, where the Spaniard from Movistar had to give in and bow to the evidence. The Slovenian has no rival right now. He has been seen and can be seen again on Friday in the third stage with the finish line in Alcalá de los Gazules. The arrival can also be good for him. Will there be poker to open 2023?
