Tadej Pogacar in a world of his own: The Slovenian's domination of the Giro d'Italia in numbers

The Giro d'Italia 2024 is not over yet, but if nothing out of the ordinary happens, we have known the winner of the final general classification for some time now. Tadej Pogacar completely obliterated his rivals again today, leaving them all behind as if they were another species, and passing Nairo Quintana like a plane when the Colombian was about to win the 15th stage.

As analysed in collaboration with CiclismoAlDia's Victor Gonzalez, the UAE Team Emirates rider already made it clear that he was looking forward to the Mortirolo and has matched his words with deeds, taking his fourth stage win so far in the race. He is the cyclist with the most wins in a single edition of the Giro since Filippo Ganna and Arnaud Demare in 2020. 

If we don't count the sprinters, he is the rider with the most stages since Damiano Cunego in 2004. The Slovenian still has the chance to add more victories to his palmarès, although it seems unlikely as he has what he wanted: The margin in the overall is stratospheric and he has to save his strength for another of his big goals of the season, the Tour de France, which will start just a few weeks after the Giro's finale.

I have removed the sprinters, because if we take them into account there are several who have managed to raise their arms on at least four occasions in a single Giro. In addition to Demare, we can also add Elia Viviani in 2018, Fernando Gaviria in 2017, Mark Cavendish in 2013 (5 wins) and Alessandro Petacchi in 2005 and in 2004 (9 wins!).

For Tadej, there are still two summit finishes and two more mountain stages, one more for puncheurs, which he is too but I don't think he will do everything possible to win, and another one that finishes downhill, where he will be one of the great candidates if the peloton catches the breakaway, as he has proven to be one of the best downhill riders in the world. But that's still a long way off, if he wins a stage again, we'll talk about it then, but for now he has four.

As I mentioned a few lines ago, his lead in the standings is mind-boggling. With his 6:41 advantage over Geraint Thomas, we can think that with the remaining stages, the gap will not be reduced. It could increase but it is very difficult to reach the 9:18 that Ivan Basso took from José Enrique Gutiérrez in the 2006 Giro d'Italia. I mention this because Pogacar's lead over the INEOS Grenadiers Welshman would be the biggest gap between first and second overall in the Italian grand tour since then.

But his incredible numbers don't end there. The little prince took the maglia rosa after the second stage of the Giro. If he keeps it until the end, which everything presages that it will be the case, he will have worn it on 20 of the 21 days of the race. This is a feat that no one has achieved since Tony Rominger in 1995, although in his case he had one more stage, since that edition had 22 days of racing.

Of the three dominant figures he is achieving, the number of days in the leader's jersey looks set to continue to increase and be fulfilled until the end. However, as I mentioned earlier, with the Tour in his sights, it seems complicated that he will go for another stage, although we should not rule him out because if he arrives in the leading group he will be the favorite in most of the remaining days, but the breakaway will not make it easy for him.

And finally, the gap to second doesn't look like it's going to move much to exceed Basso's 18 years ago. He could scrape a few seconds with the bonuses if he finishes in the top three in one of the remaining stages but little else. There is not much chance that he will attack from a distance as he did today.

As analyzed by Lanterne Rouge's Kärlis Ozols, at the end of the brutal stage Pogacar put out an estimated 6.1W/Kg in the 35-minute ascent of the Passo del Foscagno. However, the final 13 minutes in which he launched an attack and gained literal minutes on the competition... He is estimated to have averaged a whopping 6.88W/Kg, this at an altitude of over 2000 meters.