Tadej Pogacar: "It’s great to start the season like this"

The Slovenian prodigy has fulfilled what was expected of him and has won the first mountain stage of the UAE Tour, jumping into the race lead just narrowly topping Filippo Ganna. Despite having suffered from Covid-19 recently, Tadej Pogacar has seemingly been unaffected by it and has soared to a sprint win at Jebel Jais.

“I always like to win, having succeeded makes this day beautiful for me and for the team. As a team we rode well, also trying to move with João and Rafal: the latter was the strongest climber of the group today. João and Rafal were also excellent in the final in launching me towards the sprint, the victory pays off all the work done in the past months, it’s great to start the season like this," Pogacar said after the finish.

"Despite all the attacks that followed one another uphill, I saw that practically all the big names of the race remained in the leading group, so I checked that we reached the final with the compact group, since I knew it would not be possible to go solo I decided to wait for the sprint," he added. Pogacar was the first rider to stir the peloton with an attack with 8 kilometers to go, which anteceded a series of attacks including of his teammate Rafal Majka. UAE Team Emirates tried to create gaps in today's ascent to Jebel Jais, but at the end of the day a reduced bunch sprint still came to be.

"Already in training, even after recovering from Covid-19, the sensations were very good, but in the race everything can be different; the period of the illness was not so heavy for me thankfully . I had the support of the team, they helped me and gave me peace of mind: also for this reason, today’s result is the result of an overall work of the whole team. Having a team like this gives you goosebumps."

At saturday's queen stage to Jebel Hafeet the race will be much more selective. With no forecast of strong winds, that is the only place where the Slovenian will have his race lead challenged and if he shows the legs he has so far in the race it will be very hard to remove the lead off of him.