Tadej Pogacar powers past Mas on final climb to repeat at Vuelta a Andalucia with stage 2 victory

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No gifts. 

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) continued his remarkable early-season sequence by making light work of the steep, cobbled climb in Alcalá la Real to win stage 2 of the Vuelta a Andalucía Ruta Ciclista del Sol.

Enric Mas (Movistar) looked to take the fight to Pogačar in the final kilometre, but his was an effort made more in hope than expectation. Everybody knew what was coming and there was nothing they could do to stop it. As the gradient stiffened on the final ramps, Pogačar released an almost languid final acceleration to claim stage victory. Mas had to settle for second place, four seconds down, while Santiago Buitrago (Bahrain Victorious) took third.

"I tried to follow all the attacks and in the end it was a perfect finish,"  Pogačar summarised with modesty. 

"We didn’t aim for the final but in the end everyone wanted to be in the breakaway, so the race was full on from the start. Bahrain was attacking on the penultimate climb and I had to respond, so I was there in the front."   

28km earlier, when Pogačar had pressed clear of the peloton and then glided across to the break on the Puerto de la Hoya de Charilla, it even briefly looked as though Pogačar might repeat the long, solo attacks that had carried him to victory at the Clásica Jaén Paraíso Interior and on the opening stage here.

Instead, he contented himself with policing the decisive nine-man move that subsequently took shape, casually snuffing out any threats on the run-in and even occasionally trying to stall the pace to allow teammate Rafal Majka bridge across and help him in the finale. When that effort failed, Pogačar simply set about burning off his rivals as the road pitched up in the final kilometre. The circumstances change, but the exhibition continues.

Already carrying a sizeable lead after Wednesday’s opener, Pogačar didn’t need to bridge across to the break on the Puerto de la Hoya de Charilla, but it was as though he couldn’t help himself. When Mikel Landa (Bahrain Victorious) made a probing acceleration on the ascent, Pogačar responded in kind, and soon he had closed a 50-second gap to leaders Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), Lorenzo Rota (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert), Georg Zimmermann (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert) and Dylan Teuns (Israel-Premier Tech).

Mas, Landa, Buitrago and Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers) scrambled in pursuit, and they eventually made it across to the leaders on the false flat beyond the official summit of the climb, leaving nine men in front. Mohorič had been part of the early break and then attacked again on Los Rosales when that move snuffed out. He tried twice more on the long drop off the Hoya de Charilla, but he found his compatriot Pogačar wasn’t in the mood to let anything go.

In the overall standings, Pogačar’s lead is now 48 seconds over Buitrago and 52 over Landa and Rodriguez. Mas, fifth at 1:47, is the only other rider within two minutes of the unassailable yellow jersey. 

Pogačar knows he no longer has to race so aggressively. But that does not mean that he will eases off. 

"I don’t what tomorrow holds but for sure we’ll try to make as relaxed race as possible but as I can see, all the teams want to race full gas and we can’t spend too much energy on the front tomorrow too. We only have in mind to keep the yellow."

How it unfolded

Mohorič signalled his intentions for the day by attacking almost as soon as the flag had dropped at the start in Diezma, bringing eleven riders with him to form the day’s early break. With Chris Juul-Jensen (Jayco-AlUla), Nelson Oliveira (Movistar) and Alessandro Covi (UAE Team Emirates) among their number, the move had enough firepower to go the distance, but circumstances dictated otherwise.

A rapid start to proceedings saw the peloton cover more than 50km in the first hour of racing, and the escapees were caught not long after Luis Angel Mate (Euskaltel-Euskadi) had led over the Puerto del Zegri. Later, Geoffroy Soupe (TotalEnergies) and Brent Van Moer (Lotto Dstny) would have a brief rally off the front, but they were swept as the climb to Los Rosales began.

Further up the ascent, Mohorič and Juul-Jensen were again on the offensive, this time joined by Teuns, Rota, Zimmerman, Antonio Nibali (Astana-Qazaqstan), Axel Laurance (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Davide Bais (Eolo-Kometa) and Alan Jousseaume (TotalEnergies). Once more, this had the appearance of a move that might be allowed some leeway, but the complexion of the race changed all over again on the Hoya de Charilla.

Landa’s attack from the peloton on the rough, narrow road that snaked up the mountainside served only to encourage Pogačar’s natural inclination towards aggression. The yellow jersey quickly took over and, although Landa could match his pace for a few hundred metres, he was soon overwhelmed by his forcing. He wasn’t the first rider to meet that fate this year, and he won’t be the last.

Together with Mas, Rodriguez and Buitrago, Landa did at least manage to forge back across to Pogačar once the gradient had abated. But simply clawing their way back into the same race as Pogačar would be the summit of their ambition here. On the road to the final kick in Alcalá la Real, there was already a sense of inevitability about the outcome.

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