Catalunya Recap

He was rampaging.

Stage One: UAE Controlled the race with an iron fist, neutralizing the breakaway way before the final climb. But their riders were dropping like flies off of the front of the peloton. Soon, it was only Marc Soler left for the descent and lightly rolling run-in to the uphill finish. He did a good job, but inevitably, Pogačar ended up on his own. Nick Schultz of Israel – Premier Tech made a desperate attack around one of the corners and got a big gap. The peloton dawdled a bit, and in the final sprint, Pogačar ruined everybody except Stephen Williams, but missed catching Schultz by half a bike length, which meant that the Aussie took the biggest win of his career.

Stage Two: Everybody knew what was going to happen on Vallter 2000. Pogačar went from 6.5km out in the horrific rain and cold and won by 1:23 on Mikkel Landa, who put one second into Aleksandr Vlasov.

Stage Three: Everybody knew what was going to happen on Port Aine. Pogačar went from 7.3km out and took 48 seconds out of Landa, with Antonio Tiberi a very surprising third.

Stage Four: A sprint stage won by Marijn van den Berg of EF Education – EasyPost. Second was for Arne Marit and third for Emils Liepins. That’s one got to be one of the worst sprint podiums at WorldTour level in quite a while.

Stage Five: Israel paced the final hill with all of their might (which wasn’t much) and dislodged some of the sprinters, but it was not enough to keep them off the back, nor set up their men to win. After a brutal series of attacks on the flat following the descent, the peloton regrouped and Axel Laurance of Alpecin – Deceuninck took the sprint victory ahead of MVDB and Bryan Coquard. MVDB chopped Pogi in the final few hundred meters and demoralized the New Cannibal, who was probably going to get involved in the sprint (and could’ve secured a top five, perhaps podium position; I don’t see a victory though). Pogačar wisely backed off and finished in 31st place, his worst result of the week.

Stage Six: Everybody knew what was going to happen on arguably the Queen Stage, except for Visma LAB’s horrendous decision to pace all day. They managed to crush the two-man breakaway, but proceeded to drop their own team leader Sepp Kuss on the Pradell (the hardest climb in the whole race) 60km from the finish. Pogačar began to pull the peloton himself up the Pyrenean Monster with everybody else clearly suffering. With a finish that suited him (two 14-minute-climbs with a rolling valley in between… in fact Pogacar did the penultimate climb in 13:50 and the finishing climb in 13:49), and not even needing a finish that suited him this week against these riders, it was not a question of if, but when he would go solo. After Movistar bizarrely upped the tempo on the penultimate climb, which was more difficult (steeper) and Pogi attacked with 30k to go. He quickly established a large gap over the fracturing chase pack, smashed the valley, and still did a great effort up the final ascent to win by 57 seconds over Egan Bernal (!) and Landa. The GC was well and truly put to bed, though for all intents and purposes, the victory was decided before the race even started. Bernal rode himself onto the podium with Landa sat solidly in second place.

Stage Seven: The usual brutal finishing circuit around Barcelona did not disappoint, though the end result was not exactly shocking. Endless attacks rolled off of the front for 50 kilometers before a small group of favorites contested the downhill sprint for victory. Pogi took his four dub of the week, followed by a strong Dorian Godon and Guillaume Martin (?) who had his best World tour result in an eternity.

Final GC Podium: 1). Tadej Pogacar 2). Mikel Landa (3:41) 3). Egan Bernal (5:03)

Things I learned from the 2024 Volta Ciclista a Catalunya:

There’s no way around the first observation being that we are witnessing a legend of the sport in his prime and we need to resist the urge to take it for granted. He just won Catalunya by the biggest margin in 41 years. And that isn’t just Catalunya… it’s every single Major Tour (all seven, every year). That means that according to Twitter user ammattipyoraily, there have been 278 consecutive Major Tours won by a smaller margin than Pogi just won Catalunya by. In the modern era, that’s simply astonishing.

Another nice little fact about his dominance (also from ammattipyoraily) is that only he and Peter Sagan have won four stages in the same Major Tour in this millennium. And Sagan was a sprinter. But before this entire recap turns into Pogi Propaganda, I’ll write a whole separate essay about the Greatness we are all so fortunate to watch at this moment.

Landa is really flying at age 34, perhaps at his best level ever. He’ll be extremely useful for Remco Evenepoel in the Tour de France.

Bernal is not proving me wrong; he’s done nothing yet to indicate that he will make the jump from the Human Tier of riders to the Alien Tier of riders (which is required now to compete at Grand Tours and most other races). That being said, he is flying upwards toward “Best of the Rest” status. If he continues his trajectory, he might be in with a shout to podium La Vuelta. That’s a far cry from winning Le Tour de France, though (which he already did, at age 22). Despite likely pushing better numbers than ever before, he’s fallen way down the list. Who knows what might have been if he had not had the series of crashes and injuries that derailed his career. He did not profit from the COVID boom like most other riders did. I do not see him as ever having had the potential to be on the level of the Aliens.

Kuss is not looking good this year. He’s never that good outside of Grand Tours, but he finished 13th in GC, 8:20 behind. He really just needs to find his legs by July, so I guess there is plenty of time.

Tiberi is a big talent. He did really well on Stage Three. Still, when all was said and done, he lost 6-and-half minutes in the final GC. At his age of 22, Pogi had already won the TDF. That’s why I caution people about hyping up the new youngsters. Sure, Tiberi could surprise me and one day win a Grand Tour. But the fact is, the future is already here. Pogi is 25 and Remco is 23. Jonas is 27, but ascended to greatness later (so it is possible to jump up in one’s mid-20s, but very unlikely, as Jonas was not optimally trained in his youth. Also, the point is that Jonas will reign at the top of the GC heap for a while yet). The only question is who, if anyone, will replace the 34-year-old Roglic when he is finished. Tiberi is very good, but there is an enormous chasm between him and the top dogs, and the clock is ticking for him to improve.

Other teams are shockingly willing to help UAE and Pogi control races so that he wins stages. UAE was not as impressive as I expected them to be this week, but other teams stepped in at times to guarantee Pogacar got easy wins. I guess the plan was the ride for the podium and ignore the superhuman at the top, but the strategy often backfired, especially for Visma LAB.

Things I did not learn from Catalunya:

Vlasov struggles on hard mountain days (this has been apparent for years). He was good on the first MTF, which was essentially a unipuerto, but he was less good on the repeated hard climbs on Stages Three and Six. He still salvaged a decent fourth place in the final GC.

As dominant as he is, whether or not Pogacar has actually improved his climbing level from last year. I will do a lengthy analysis in another post, but it’s not clear to me if his long-climbing is going to be competitive with Jonas in July. I’m convinced his overall level is better than ever, but his biggest weakness appears to be un-addressed for now.

Whether Geraint Thomas is going to be any good in the Giro this year. His finishing place was 27th, 18 minutes back. He’s never good in March, and this was no exception. But I’m leaning towards him being washed.

Okay, those were a few quick takes from Catalunya. Thanks for reading as always, and I’ll be back with an E3/Gent-Wevelgem Recap shortly; in addition, as mentioned, I’ll be writing a lengthy analysis/simp piece of Tadej Pogacar’s growing legendary status.

Oh, and De Ronde is Sunday. LFG.

Jamie