'What a show' – Tadej Pogacar lays down ominous marker in first race of 2023

Tadej Pogačar's feats of strength may be routine by now, but they are never mundane. The latest exhibition came on his first race day of 2023, as the Slovenian claimed a crushing solo victory at the Clásica Jaén Paraíso Interior.

When his UAE Team Emirates began to wind up the pace inside the final 50km, the peloton knew precisely what was coming, but nobody could stop it.

Ineos Grenadiers youngster Ben Tulett put up fierce resistance when Pogačar hit the head of the reduced bunch on a gravel climb with 45km remaining, but even a rider of the Briton's obvious talent could only manage a few hundred metres in his slipstream before relenting.

In double quick time, Pogačar bridged across to lone escapee Sergio Samitier (Movistar) and he would soon repeat the dose, riding the Spaniard off his wheel with 36km to go.

As previous sprint victories have shown, Pogačar is blessed with a sharp acceleration, but he left the rapier in its scabbard here, opting instead for blunt force. Samitier held on for as long as he could before he was simply overwhelmed by Pogačar's perpetual motion.

With 15km to go, Pogačar's lead over the chasers was almost two minutes, though the advantage shrank after a late puncture required an unhurried bike change. No matter, he freewheeled across the line some 48 seconds clear of Ben Turner (Ineos Grenadiers), who won the sprint for second place ahead of Pogačar's new teammate Tim Wellens.

"It's always a little bit scary but I was lucky to have a lot of lead on the second group to have a car behind me, so it was not so stressful in the end," Pogačar said later.

Turner spoke for the rest of the peloton when he offered his assessment to Eurosport after the finish. They were only fleetingly in the same bike race as the winner.

"Second was the best I could do today after Pogačar just rode away, really," Turner said. "What a show."

When the television cameras huddled around Pogačar at the podium, he explained that his winning move had been premeditated, with first Wellens and then Marc Hirschi working to tee up his onslaught. Hirschi would underscore UAE Team Emirates' collective dominance by winning the sprint for fourth.

"So far, so good, I couldn't be more happy to start the season like this. It makes me really happy, the team worked so well today it was like a fairy tale and to finish it off with first and third place, it's amazing," Pogačar said.

"It was the plan to attack there. The team put us in the perfect position, then Tim Wellens put us in the perfect position coming into the gravel section, and then Hirschi finished it off on the climb. From there, it was a matter of the legs on the last two minutes of the climb. It was as we planned, so perfect.

"We had a good game plan, and I managed to stay alone until the finish which gives me a really big boost for the start of the season."

Pogacar's win on the gravel in Andalusia carried echoes of his remarkable solo triumph at Strade Bianche last March, though he insisted that there were limits to the similarities between the two races. 

"I think I would not compare," he said. "They're similar races because they both have gravel, but the gravel is completely different in both races, and different climbs, different entrances to the gravel sections. It's a whole different experience today."

For Pogačar, the Clásica Jaén Paraíso Interior serves as a warm-up for this week's Ruta del Sol, which gets underway on Wednesday and where Egan Bernal (Ineos Grenadiers) is set to be among his rivals, assuming the Colombian is given the green light to race after abandoning the Vuelta a San Juan with a knee injury.

"Many really good riders are coming [to the Ruta del Sol]," he said. "The stages are really nice really hard so it's going to be a really tough five days of racing."

Starting the campaign in Andalusia marks a change for Pogačar, who raced – and won – the UAE Tour in each of the past two seasons.

The Spanish swing is not the only alteration to his Spring calendar, with L'Équipe reporting on Monday that Pogačar will travel directly from Strade Bianche to ride Paris-Nice this year, rather than returning to defend his title at Tirreno-Adriatico.

Pogacar was coy about the precise details of his race programme at the start in Ubeda on Monday, limiting himself to noting that Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège would be the main objectives of his Spring campaign.

The centrepiece of his season, of course, is the Tour de France, where he is seeking to regain the yellow jersey he lost to Jonas Vingegaard last July. The first outing of his year felt like a statement of intent.