Pogačar Crushes Tour de France Hopes

Tadej Pogačar reminded everyone who’s the six-star favorite for the Tour de France with a devastating solo raid on Wednesday at the Tour de Suisse.

Pogačar breezed away from the group of favorites, toyed with a doomed breakaway rider, and then romped to a 69km solo victory on the opening stage of the 5-day race.

He crossed the line 2:14 ahead of lone chaser Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) after a rampage that was on par with his soloes at Strade Bianche and the 2024 road world championships.

Andrea Bagioli (Lidl-Trek) came to the line third at 2:29 after he made a blazing late chase for Carapaz but couldn’t quite make the catch.

It was a beyond-emphatic start for the Pogačar as he puts the final touches on his Tour de France form.

Pogačar hails textbook set-up by UAE Emirates XRG

Even more concerning for Jonas Vingegaard and Co., Pogačar’s teammates at UAE Emirates-XRG looked on-point on Wednesday.

Brandon McNulty delivered the final pulls for Pogačar’s attack. The Arizonan then disrupted the chase with his UAE henchmen Jhonatan Narváez and Felix Großschartner.

All three of them are slated to line up behind Pogačar at the Grand Départ in Barcelona next month.

Pogačar made it look easy Wednesday, but denied it was just some training ride.

“It was hard. It was a really hard day,” he said in his winner’s interview. “The start was easy, but with the first climb of the day, it was already super hard. The team did an amazing pace there. Then me and Brandon [McNulty] looked at each other and said ‘let’s go, we’ll try something’ and from then on we just went.

“This was definitely not the plan today, but somehow it worked,” he continued. “Thanks to the team, because without blocking and setting the pace before that, this wouldn’t have been possible.”

Pogačar silences doubts after off-key ride in Romandie

After a typically dominant but slightly off-key ride at the Tour de Romandie in early May, this was peak Pogačar.

The four-time Tour de France champion looked two levels above what’s a low-key GC field. Carapaz, Primož Roglič, and Lenny Martinez are the only riders with a chance of stopping him from winning the Swiss race on debut this week.

Pogačar’s initial move off the front of a small split of classification riders at 72km to go of Wednesday’s stage looked like it was almost a mistake.

He floated up to breakaway rider Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X Mobility) and then dispatched the Norseman without drawing breath.

When Pogačar got clear at 69km to go, he held his gap at a steady 70-90 seconds before he opened the turbos in the final 40km of the short, hilly course.

“I had no radio so I didn’t know what was going on behind so I just kept riding hard,” Pogačar said after the stage. “When I knew the gap was quite big I could settle into the rhythm.”

Carapaz began his solo pursuit at around 50km to go, but the Ecuadorian must have known he was racing for second.

Bagioli hung around in the bunch until around 20km to go until he launched out for third.

The TLDR from stage 1 of the Tour de Suisse?

Tour de France hopefuls, be warned – King Pog is back, and he’s moving fast.

Tour de Suisse stage 1 results: