You beauty, @NarvaezJho!!!!! The perfect start to the #Giro 🩷
Jhonatan Narváez matches and beats Tadej Pogacar to take Giro d'Italia glory: "Trying to follow the best rider in the world uphill was very tough"
CyclingSunday, 05 May 2024 at 10:39
Much to the delight of INEOS Grenadiers, Jhonatan Narváez took full advantage of the freedom he got on the opening day of the Giro d'Italia. The Ecuadorian rider was the only rider to match Tadej Pogacar on the final climb and then even managed to beat the Slovenian in the final sprint.
“This is my second stage victory in the Giro d'Italia, but this one is certainly better than the first. I have worked hard to be here. Trying to follow the best rider in the world uphill was very tough. That is why it is an extra nice victory. It still hurts at the moment, but I won," Narváez said in a post-race interview. Amidst a chaotic finale with plenty attacks, Pogacar was forced to make a move off the front in the bottom of the final ascent. Steep, this wouldn't benefit rivals much and none but one rider managed to be in the slipstream all the way. That was Ecuadorian champion Narváez, who held on despite all the accelerations.
After the summit of the ascent and with all GC rivals distanced, the Slovenian had the pressure to stay in the front of the group. The flat run-in to the finale was only 500 meters long, but that was enough Max Schachmann launched his sprint early which caused a reaction from Pogacar. Narváez took full advantage of the early sprint to then come off the wheel with power. “I think Pogacar came from too far away. A sprint of two hundred meters after a tough stage is long. I wanted to make it a short sprint," he explains.
The reward: A pink jersey, and the biggest win of his career. “Being able to wear the pink jersey is amazing. Our sports director told me yesterday: there are not many opportunities in a Grand Tour to take the pink jersey on the first day for riders like me," he shares. "Often on days like this you have a bunch sprint or a prologue, so this was the ideal opportunity.” Tomorrow with a summit finish on the Santuario di Oropa it will be very difficult to maintain it, but he will spend the whole day in the pink jersey.
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- again, no mention that all of Lance's competitors were doping as well... 98% of them also denied doping ....Xrider5124-11-2024
- again, no mention that all of Lance's competitors were doping also ...Xrider5124-11-2024
- Yes, thank you Maria. He has a fractured skull but no pain or sequels and there should be no consequences after the small bump deflates. If anything, he is more likely to get something from the radiation he received when they “investigated” for abuse, CT scan, MRI, a dozen x-rays and he will have to have a follow up scan too. But as said, all due to childbirth, if we hadn’t noticed or worried and not taken him to emergencies, he’d have had no tests at all and instead of one to check the fracture wasn’t serious he got far more :-(Mistermaumau24-11-2024
- Obviously there is the question of enormous willpower but some injuries are extremely specific. A torn meniscus for example can function pretty well during cycling whilst making it close to impossible to go up or down stairs or walk normally.Mistermaumau24-11-2024
- First of all, I hope now all is ok with your baby!. Yeah, about to not accept foreign phone number is a big problem also for me. I have economic interests in 2 countries, I think that all can be ok with my Italian number... but NO! The world is globalized but not for bureaucracies.
maria2024202424-11-2024 - First of all, calm, this is a site to share point of views, doubts, intuitions about cycling. Let's think about it: if someone tells you that he is very tired but is going to run unimportant races immediately, ignoring a world championship much further away in time that would give him the opportunity to rest, there is something very contradictory. Maybe it is fair, but as a simple spectator I (and many others) do not understand it, it does not make sense.maria2024202424-11-2024
- I think the other side has said plenty, given comments about her reputation like what Renz said above. Perhaps this is her chance to speak up against that reputation? I have no idea but her comments seem pretty human, even if each person has their own version of the story.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Give her a team built around her with no competing leaders, like Pogacar has at UAE or Vingegaard has at Visma (seeing how Roglic left), and I wonder how Vollering would do. She’s already so good, and a team dedicated to her could make her even better.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Those injuries, an ability to manage pain and push himself, probably a load of TUEs to help him get back from an awful moment, and competing that hard without the long exercise base that was the norm - no wonder he was exhausted. We’ve now had two consecutive seasons of the second place rider having an injury that interrupts training, and it shows to what level their bodies are tuned for the insane task of winning the Tour. I certainly hope both (and their teams!) are healthy next year. It would be a first, after 4 years.RidesHills24-11-2024
- Winners seem to be like this. Win or lose, it is always on to the next thing. They don’t celebrate the big win, they don’t worry about the painful loss. They move on. It’s an amazing skill. But to be able to ride (and win) while not being able to walk? That’s a level of pain management that boggles my mind. Of course they have it, given what they put their bodies through, but it’s just crazy.RidesHills24-11-2024