"It wasn't our tactic, everything exploded at that moment" - Marc Hirschi reflects on Tadej Pogacar's Strade Bianche winning attack

Marc Hirschi was one of Tadej Pogacar's UAE Team Emirates teammates at Strade Bianche 2024 and like anyone who watched the race, he couldn't help but be impressed by Pogacar's performance.

After the race, Hirschi made it clear that the initial plan was not for the Slovenian to go solo with 81km still left, but that they expected the race to be decided later. However, bad weather conditions ended up causing Pogacar to completely explode the race at that point.

"We controlled the race from the beginning, we were ahead on Baroncini. Then everything went crazy, it started raining, then everything exploded very soon, it wasn't our tactic, it just happened and we won, great for us," he tells Cycling Pro Net.

"The course was harder than before, so even if the race was longer the tricky part was there in Santa Maria, where it's broken so many times before. The race becomes a day. The course conditioned the race. The initial plan was to leave all the rivals we could in Santa Maria and then in the last laps make the move," Hirschi concludes.