Tadej Pogacar asserted his dominance once again after he bided his time to spring a late attack on his rivals to win Stage 8 of the Giro d’Italia on Saturday afternoon. It was the third stage victory from the UAE Team Emirates rider at the race and Eurosport’s Breakaway team described him as a “chess master” and claimed his dominance must be “very demoralising” for his rivals.
Eurosport’s Breakaway team said Tadej Pogacar was acting like a “chess master” as he bided his time to spring a late attack to claim victory on Stage 8 of the Giro d’Italia on Saturday afternoon.
The UAE Team Emirates rider produced a steady display for the majority of the stage, allowing his team-mates to control the tempo and conserving his energy for the final climb with the help of Rafal Majka and Felix Grossschartner.
With the final two kilometres in sight, Dani Martinez (Bora-Hansgrohe), Thymen Arensman (Ineos Grenadiers) and Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain Victorious) all attempted to attack but Pogacar did not let them go and waited before setting up a late sprint finish with relative ease.
The victory saw the Slovenian tighten his stranglehold on the pink jersey after claiming his third stage win of this year’s edition.
Eurosport’s Breakaway team were in awe of Pogacar’s performance and discussed the psychological disadvantage for his rivals after watching him coast to another victory.
“Those final two kilometres must’ve been a real morale-zapper for everyone in that front group because you had Tiberi going up the front, Pogacar reels him back, Thyman going up the front, Pogacar reels him back in,” Orla Chennaoui said.
“It was like playing a game of chess with everybody and they’re all the pawns and he’s the chess master.”
Robbie McEwen stated: “That must’ve been very demoralising. Arensman out of the saddle, full throttle and Pogacar just tickled the ivories and went into the wheel. And the others must go: ‘Oh dear’.”
He added: “With the way that Tadej Pogacar is riding – so dominant – even if he becomes isolated and the others get rid of the rest of his team, it’s probably going to be a worse situation for them.
“If he takes matters into his own hands, I think he’s going to blow the rest completely to pieces and they’ll go: ‘That wasn’t a good idea.’”
Arensman didn’t manage to hold on for the sprint finish and team-mate Geraint Thomas finished in fifth position, but EF Education–EasyPost manager Jonathan Vaughters said Ineos should not be too discouraged by their strategy.
“Ineos is trying to put UAE under a bit of pressure but it’s really hard to be able to do that,” he explained. “They have such a dominant leader right now.
“Although on paper the team [UAE] doesn’t look that great, they’re rising to the level of their leader which happens a lot.
“You see a dominant team with a dominant leader. People ask me how that happens when you have a race leader that’s really inspiring the rest of the crew. No matter what the team is on paper, everyone comes up a level.
“You can see the reverse of it too. You see Visma, the best team in the world last year, and you look at this race and they had one rider in the first 50 because right now, they’re operating without a leader.
“For some reason, psychologically teams really rise to the level of their leader. We could be critical of UAE before the race saying on paper, they’re not that great and it’s the B squad with the A squad going to the Tour de France.
“But clearly the B squad has said ‘we’re here to win the Giro d’Italia and we’re here to support Tadej’ and they’re doing a good job.”
Following his stage victory, Pogacar was full of praise for his team-mates as he extended his lead in the GC to 2’38”.
“I was not expecting it at all today,” Pogacar said. “As a team we rode super well from the beginning and we came with a good time gap to the last climb. Mikkel [Bjerg] and [Vegard Stake] Laengen did a super-good job until the final climb.
“Rafa [Majka] did an amazing lead out and it’s amazing to win again here at Prati di Tivo.
“We already saw Dani Martinez doing very good finishes this year, obviously I was thinking of him as my main opponent, but he wasn’t the only one.
“Antonio Tiberi tried a few times, but I had it more or less under control and Rafa helped me so much in the last couple of kilometres so it was really good.”
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