"He looked like he was riding a motorcycle" - Tadej Pogacar's opponents left speechless after Slovenian's Cipressa raid
Cycling
Thanks to Tadej Pogacar's raid, the long-standing record on the Cipressa was broken with first-ever ascent under 9 minutes. Two men - Mathieu van der Poel and Filippo Ganna - were able to follow but for the rest, the Slovenian seemed to be on a completely different level.
"It’s the most spectacular edition I’ve ever seen in my entire life," confirmed INEOS Grenadiers' Omar Fraile ahead of the Volta a Catalunya in reactions collected by Marca.
"Pogacar was crazy. Pure spectacle. He always puts on a show in these types of races, where the outcome is usually different. It was incredible," says Sepp Kuss, loyal mountain helper of Jonas Vingegaard who'll be tasked with stopping the Slovenian's rampage in the mountains of Tour de France this summer.
For Marc Soler, a teammate on some of Tadej's best and worst afternoons, what he put on Saturday "is another of his shows that, unfortunately, didn't help him win, although none of us doubt he'll try again as many times as necessary."
Even more surprised was Lidl-Trek's Juan Pedro López, a pure climber: "He looked like he was riding a motorcycle, he was flying. I was amazed when I watched it live. It's something I'd never seen before. Pure spectacle."
Tadej and MVDP bring that panache back to cycling that we missed right through the Armstrong years, the Sky years and to an extent the couple of Visma tour wins. Whole team blocking a race, no attacking, no excitement till the leaders jumped away in KM
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santiagobenites26-03-2025 - I hope Wout can come back. He has had 3 terrible crashes--not on par with Froome or Bernal, but at his level just a fraction of a percent is all that separates the grand champions of this new generation. Even if he is back all the way physically, those abrupt confrontations with pavement and mortality take a psychic toll, especially for a father of young kids.
Barney26-03-2025 - Everyone was so keen on free speech for a while, what happened ;-) But seriously, the problem is not so much that he gave his view as that someone follows it and spreads it, not totally unlike the schoolkids running US war games at present ;-)Mistermaumau26-03-2025
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- Sweet. I wonder who's up on the next episode of Disgraced Ex-Doper Offers an Unsolicited Opinion?critguy26-03-2025