A victory of much suffering, but dominance over the rest of the field. Tadej Pogacar has scored a hattrick of victories at the Volta a Catalunya, taking his third win in as many mountain stages. He did this despite a late run-in with a motorbike which he smacked.
"Today was a really hard stage. We controlled from the start pretty good but then on the long special [category] climb Visma | Lease a Bike tried to set a harder pace and it was super super hard towards the top, only remained 10 riders, and we were quite well inside with Marc Soler and João [Almeida]," Pogacar described as he warmed down from a thrilling day of racing. UAE didn't seem to have an exact plan, and after pacing the group into only 12 riders on the Col du Pradell, Pogacar decided to not wait and on the penultimate climb of the day launched an attack so that no-one would surprise him.
"We set the pace until the bottom of the next climb, the group came back and Movistar tried to attack there. I just launched there, I saw some people follow but I said 'ok we go to the top', the rest is history," he says. With some grinning, the UAE Team Emirates rider made his way to the finish once again in complete isolation, raising his arms in glory for the third time this week.
"Take it with care (the descent, ed.), and in the final climb it was really nice with all these people but I was suffering a lot," he admits. Nevertheless, his suffering was worth it and if his overall win wasn't already virtually confirmed, he added another 57 seconds - plus bonifications - over Mikel Landa who was third on the day.
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