Pogacar recovers from crash to claim dramatic victory at Stage 2

Despite falling victim to a puncture and slow speed crash at the foot of the final climb, Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) was able to regain contact with the peloton, attack 4.5km from the finish, and go on to take victory on Stage 2, as well as the overall race lead.

The result is Pogacar’s first Giro d’Italia stage victory, meaning he has now achieved a win in each of the three Grand Tours.

The dramatic moment loosely mirrored that which happened to Marco Pantani on the same Oropa climb in 1999. It occurred at the end of a straightforward day in Piedmont, North-West Italy which had, up to that point, gone entirely according to plan for the favourite and his team.

The stage, which was made up of 93km of near flat before almost 60km of up and down, began with a group of five riders forming a breakaway. The all-Italian quintet, comprised of Christian Scaroni (Astana), Andrea Piccolo (EF Education-EasyPost), Davide Bais (Polti-Kometa), Filippo Fiorelli and Martin Marcellusi (VF Group-Bardiani-Faizene) was allowed to build themselves a lead of around four minutes before the team of maglia rosa Jhonatan Narvaez, Ineos Grenadier, took over and began to ride at the front of the peloton.

They held out and together for most of the afternoon and all of the flat, with their lead only seriously beginning to slip at the first intermediate sprint. The four climbs that followed – only two of which were categorised – proved fatal to its chances of survival, which Piccolo evidently could see coming. The 23 year-old took it upon himself to ditch the deadwood and ride clear.

Although his efforts – which Sean Kelly called ‘crazy stuff’ – were ultimately doomed, he was successful in taking maximum mountains points on third category Oasi Zenga and Nelva climbs, marking him out as a contender in that competition. At 15km of the race to go he was the last rider standing but the Ineos and UAE-led bunch was bearing down on him.

Pogacar’s puncture and crash caused him and his team to panic neither he nor they showed it. Even with Ineos Grenadiers setting a tough pace, Pogacar had been delivered back among to his position among the first dozen riders before Oropa was halfway done.

Mikkel Bjerg took over and took the pressure up several notches, causing riders such as Maximilian Schachman (Bora-Hasgrohe) and Nairo Quintana (Movistar) to lose contact. Once his team-mates had done all they could for him, 4.5km from the finish Pogacar made his move. No-one could match him, though Ben O’Connor (Decathlon-AG2R) and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) were the two closest before being caught by a larger group of lightweight riders.

Pogacar neither looked back nor pushed himself beyond his limits, simply riding to victory and into a formidable 45 second overall lead after the first weekend.

Dani Martinez (EF Education First) was the best of the rest, crossing the finishline 27 seconds after the Slovenian. Geraint Thomas, who also took two bonus seconds at the final intermediate sprint, came third. The result puts Thomas in second place overall, level on time with Martinez.

“We expected [the attack],” said Thomas afterwards. “I was hoping to follow but I knew if I kept going like that I’d completely blow up. When the group came up to us it was a case of trying to recover and try and get some seconds in the sprint at the end…”

For Pogacar’s part it was a case of job well done:

“The dream was to take the pink jersey and I can relax a little bit the next two days while we stay safe in the sprints.”

Stage is a 166km flat stage from Novara to Fossano and is expected to be contested by the sprinters.