Robbie McEwen advises Tadej Pogacar to "be conservative in the Giro d'Italia. It's a long time until the end of July"
CyclingFriday, 03 May 2024 at 12:16
With Tadej Pogacar attempting to become the first man since Marco Pantani to win both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France in the same year, Eurosport expert Robbie McEwen has advised the Slovenian to try and win the Giro whilst being as conservative as possible.
"Be conservative in the Giro. It's a long time until the end of July," warns the Australian, twelve-time Giro d'Italia stage winner, in conversation with Eurosport. "No matter if you're the big favourite and you're stronger than everybody in the Giro, it's a race and a course that can really hurt you if you have ambition to do the double. Yes, of course, ride to win the Giro but be conservative for the energy."
In somewhat recent years, both Tom Dumoulin and Chris Froome have paid for their Giro d'Italia winning efforts at the subsequent Tour de France. Given the fact Pogacar is such an overwhelming favourite for the first Grand Tour of the year and that his arch-rival Jonas Vingegaard is unlikely to compete for victory at the Tour de France after his Itzulia Basque Country crash, this could be a perfect chance to Pogacar to write his name even further into the history books.
"Pogacar can win the Giro-Tour regardless of whether Vingegaard or others would have or not have fallen," adds McEwen's Eurosport colleague, Alberto Contador. "It is undoubted that Jonas Vingegaard is a great rival. It is true that he is very solid, he has a very good measure of the Tour of France, as he has demonstrated the last two years. But Pogacar, even if these riders would not have fallen, had many chances of winning the Giro and the Tour."
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- On one side, he was unhappy due to the TDF no, but i suppose money and other aspects made the differenceabstractengineer14-05-2025
- True, but, Mads has a few more years of collection and his season’s tally will start levelling off whereas Jonas’ should be just starting so even if Mads overtakes him, it’s probably briefly. That now all being clear, obviously the greatest is Tony Rominger, at least that’s their most popular male cyclist, which is another way of saying he must have been great :-) Hey, sorry but if someone’s going to ask rabbit-hole questions, you can only expect rabbit-hole answers.Mistermaumau14-05-2025
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- The ranking points between Jakob Fuglsang and Jonas Vingegaard is huge, BTW.. about 6700 ranking points. Mads trails Jonas by 14 points.FredMan14-05-2025
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- I love it when the "little guy" wins!acem8214-05-2025
- Yeah, TdF is completely overrated, only amateurs and has-beens participate. And little ole skimpy Jonas has only won it as often as Switzerland or The Netherlands or Germany and Australia combined. Prestigewise there is NO comparison until he wins either the WC again or something big coz sorry G-W is basically a 2nd rate race at their level and he’s not won much else except a decent collection of stages, which Jonas and plenty of sprinters win too. Until now, MP is about pulling level with Asgreen who also won stages and classics, was a WC and HE got himself a monument and almost as many almosts as Mads but in a career only half as long.Mistermaumau13-05-2025
- Jonas is a great rider but only rides stage races so i would have to say he & Mads are about equal now. Stage racing in general is overvalued i think... (vs the power required to win one day races)Xrider5113-05-2025
- Jonas only does stage raXrider5113-05-2025
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Me too.
He has two options:
1. Aggressive riding :- 8 stage wins + GC and forget about TDF & history
2. Conservative riding:- 2 stage wins + GC, and more power for history making.
I hope he is mature enough to know what he is up-to.
Tadej should aim to win the Giro at the slowest speed required to have the pink jersey in Rome
Attack when necessary and do only what is necessary to win when it's necessary to do it. Doing Giro and Tour to win has not been done even since hi-octane era for some very clear physiologic reasons...
He can be in the jersey from Stage 1, but it's not clear if his team has enough firepower to defend a jersey from stage 1... If his team crumbles, then his individual strength and extraordinary althletic qualities alone will NOT win the Giro.
Many times the strongest individual man has lost the race
He can win any stage he wants and cold weather is not an issue for him. So manage his effort, pick his spots and make sure that other teams are.motivated to carry the race, not just to attack UAE...
And all of this wisdom presupposes no problems. It will be difficult to know how much margin to build up to have towards the end just in case something happens.
Things look good now for him but until recently, they did for a bunch of guys who are now having to play catch up. No-one is immune in cycling.
Yep. If you have the potential to win in whatever ways, why you ride aggressively? take a time on TTs and take more time on Livigno stage. That's all control the race on flat & some hilly stages.... Ineos does the mountains for you
Is "conservative riding" in Pogacar's skillset? We'll see. He's going to be tempted by stage win opportunities, because there are a lot of stages he could win here.
It could play out in some stages that he gets a free ride from teams fighting for the podium and minor placings
Is shading at people necessary? 🤦🏻
As if Tadej needs that sort of advise, he has ridden 5 Grand Tours and never been off the podium.
Never 2 in a row (which means keeping something in reserve even when you don’t feel you need it at the time) and his aim is to win both not just make the podium.
Besides he has been known to cave in from trying too much without it bringing anything, the most known case being when Jonas cracked him.
Also, I really don’t think he is telling Tadej, who is very unlikely to be reading such a marginal website, even if someone had the job to summarise all the info available on the net for him. In fact, if you reread the text more objectively it is just a rhetorical question, at most addressing the participants here.
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