And three. After 2022 and 2024, Slovenian Tadej Pogacar (UAE) won the Strade Bianche, despite a fall 50 kilometers from the finish, Saturday March 8, in Siena, in central Italy.
Tadej Pogacar, who equals Swiss Fabian Cancellara’s record for victories in the Italian classic, was ahead of the Briton Tom Pidcock (Q36.5) by more than a minute at the end of a 213-kilometer race – including 82 kilometers of gravel paths (Q36.5), author of the decisive acceleration 78 kilometers from the finish.
“It’s not the best way to win a race. Now that I’ve crossed the finish line, it hurts, but I hope it won’t have an impact,” said Tadej Pogacar, who had several bruises, notably on his left shoulder. “I entered the corner too quickly. It’s strange, because I know this road well. I was worried after getting up, but it was okay in the end,” he added.
A year after his demonstration in the Tuscan hills and on the white pebble farm roads, where he left his last rivals 80 kilometers from the finish, Tadej Pogacar this time experienced a huge scare and reached Siena with a torn jersey and a sore body.
The 2024 world champion had to grit his teeth: he fell on a descent while poorly negotiating a turn while he was in the lead, with Thomas Pidcock and another Briton, Connor Swift.
Two weeks from Milan-Sanremo
He saw his rear wheel slip away and ended up in a ditch after a spectacular rollover. The three-time winner of the Tour de France quickly got up and resumed the race, with his jersey and bib shorts torn off at the shoulder and left thigh.
Also injured in his right hand, Tadej Pogacar, 26, was 32 seconds behind Thomas Pidcock, but ended up, after changing bikes, coming back 45 kilometers from the finish in Siena on the Briton, winner of the event in 2023, who got up to wait for him.
Shortly after having negotiated the descent much better, taken twice this year, where he had fallen shortly before and celebrated his “exploit” by raising his arm, Tadej Pogacar regained his insolent superiority.
He let go of Thomas Pidcock at 18.8 kilometers, thanks to a lightning acceleration in one of the last difficulties, the Colle Pinzuto.
He quickly counted 15, then 45 seconds in advance to definitively KO Thomas Pidcock, who resisted the return of a teammate of Tadej Pogacar, the Belgian Tim Wellens, 3e more than two minutes away.
It remains to be seen whether this painful victory will have an impact on Tadej Pogacar’s calendar, two weeks before Milan-Sanremo (March 22), one of the two Cycling Monuments that he has not yet won (with Paris-Roubaix) and which is his big goal at the start of the season.
Demi Vollering wins among women
Among the women, it was the Dutchwoman Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) who won the Strade Bianche on Saturday, including the Frenchwoman Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, 3ewas one of the great animators.
Demi Vollering, already winner in 2023 of the Italian classic traced in the hills of Tuscany and on white pebble paths, beat her compatriot Anna van der Breggen (SD Worx) by 18 seconds.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot (Visma-Lease a bike), who returns to the road this season after ten years devoted to mountain biking, has become with her 3e place, 1 minute and 42 seconds behind Demi Vollering, the first French woman to finish on the podium in the event created in 2015.
Demi Vollering, star recruit in the off-season of the French team FDJ-Suez, made the difference at the exit of the last of the thirteen sections of gravel roads, twelve kilometers from the finish.
Only Anna van der Breggen managed to follow her, but the Dutchwoman, who resumed her career this season at the age of 34 after being part of the SD Worx team for three seasons and notably managing Demi Vollering, collapsed on the final ramp, 400 meters from the finish.
Demi Vollering, winner of the 2023 Tour de France, benefited from the work of her French teammates Juliette Labous and Evita Muzic, to whom she paid tribute as soon as she got off the bike.
“I knew I was in good shape. There was a lot of pressure, because everyone announced me as the favorite. I’m super happy to have justified this status of favorite and finished the great job done by my teammates”, explained the Dutchwoman.
Pauline Ferrand-Prévot has long believed in victory. The 2024 Olympic mountain bike champion, who has a gravel world champion title to her impressive record, was the spearhead of a breakaway of seven riders who had a lead of up to a minute and 30 seconds.
But a fall without physical consequences 38 kilometers from the finish, which did not seem to disturb her, however isolated the Frenchwoman after the return of Demi Vollering. And she was unable to do anything against the FDJ-Suez team which, thanks to its Dutch leader, signed its first victory in the Strade Bianche.
With AFP
