The young powerhouses, with three stage victories each, Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) and Tadej Pogacar (UAE) are the two correct names of the 2024 Giro d’Italia, the Italian as the best sprinter and the Slovenian as not undisputed leader of the general classification and top favorite to wear the final ‘maglia rosa’ on May 26 in Rome.
Milan, 23 years old, is the star with his sprint speed, as he showed yesterday with his impressive hat-trick at the Cento finish line. After the new Italian demonstration, attention will once again fall on Pogacar and the interesting weekend that awaits the leader and the other podium contenders. Given the performance of the 25-year-old Slovenian, the second time trial of 31.2 flat kilometers and the ‘queen’ mountain stage will offer enough terrain today and tomorrow for Tadej to deliver an almost certain blow to career.
“I hope I will have the same feeling I had in the last test and finish very strong. Then we will have the ‘queen’ stage on Sunday. It will be a nice day,” said the Slovenian, who yesterday passed the transition stage with no stress.
“Until now, something has happened in every stage of the Giro d’Italia and this time was no exception. It was a flat stage, but with some winding roads and a bit of wind. Ineos tried to do something , but we’re there with the team. It’s more of a headwind. They have a strong team to do that, I’ll try that too,” commented Pogacar, the team of one of his main rivals, the British Geraint Thomas, third place overall, 2’56” behind the Slovenian.
At 2’40” Colombian Daniel Felipe Martínez is second, a margin Pogacar will widen this weekend if he continues at his usual level. The Slovenian already won the first test with 16” over the great specialist Filippo Ganna and beat his pursuers by 1’48” and 1’59”, respectively. In Perugia he had a few kilometers of climbing that helped him beat Ganna, who would now have a friendlier profile to him.
The following day, the peloton faces the ‘queen’ stage, also the longest of the Giro’2024, with 222 km and five climbs, one in the 3rd category and another 2nd in the first third and three in 1st in the final stretch. : Mortirolo (12.6 km at 7.7% average slope and 11.5% maximum), Foscagno (14.6 km at 6.3%) and Mottolino (4.6 km at 7.7%).
Source: La Verdad
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