Tadej Pogacar already have Romandy. Another territory buttoned up, another box marked on that impossible map that the Slovenian is coloring with a frightening naturalness. He changed the noise of the classics for the government of a stage tour and the result was almost always: victory, authority and the feeling that current cycling lives pending its next whims. In Swiss He didn’t just win one race. He approached a challenge that he didn’t even Eddy Merckx was able to complete: conquer the seven grand tours of one week on the calendar.
Tadej Pogacar III of Flanders
He Romandie Tour It was new territory for him, and that, in his case, never sounded like a threat but rather an encouragement. It came from a spring collection —Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, Flanders, Liège and a second in Roubaix that for others would be worth it as a season title—with five days of legs before Romandie and that feeling of total dominance that is almost uncomfortable to see. Then it was time to change the chip: leave behind the stones, the walls and the Sights to get into the daily control of a stage race. He did it without lowering his pulse. As if the calendar were his and the others could only discuss the margins.
With Romandy in your pocket, adds one more piece to a very particular collection. I already had the Tyrrhenian-Adriatic —doubly— Paris-Nice, the Volta a Catalunya and the Dauphiné. Now Romandía enters and has two left to close the plenary session of the big weeks: the Tour of Switzerland and Itzulia. The first appears on the immediate horizon, as a rehearsal before the Tour de France. The second, the Basque round, is the pending account that fits worst into his agenda as long as he remains a devotee of Flanders and Roubaix.
Liege, at his feet: Tadej Pogacar defeats Seixas in the generational duel
The dimension of the challenge is better understood looking back. Merckx He won almost everything, but this circle resisted him. The Tirreno-Adriatico never fell into their hands, and modern Itzulia was out of its time on the calendar. WorldTour. Roglic He is, until now, the great specialist of the genre: Paris-Nice, Tirreno, Catalunya, Itzulia, Romandie, Dauphiné. It just lacks Swiss. But Pogacar play something else. He does not collect by accumulation but by expansion. Each victory opens a new room in the story.
And there it appears Jonas Vingegaard, the other name that cannot be missed. The Dane is also pursuing that plenary session and started with a certain advantage in this invisible race: he has Paris-Nice, Catalunya, Tirreno, Dauphiné and Itzulia. Romandy and Switzerland are missing. This year he will not touch Swiss territory because his roadmap includes the Giro, but the race is still open. Like on the Tour. As in almost everything that matters.
Pogacar, meanwhile, continues to widen the battlefield. It is no longer enough for him to win Monuments, Grand Tours or World Championships. He also wants to possess those intermediate territories where consistency, recovery and daily control of a race are measured. Romandie is the last sign. The Slovenian doesn’t just win races. It turns them into stepping stones to something that still has no name.
Close the week with a poker
Pogacar closed his victory in Romandy with his fourth stage win. The world champion secures his first victory in the Swiss event with victory in Leysin (14.3 km at 5.9%). With the getaway controlled throughout the day, everything was decided in the first-class port that closed the week and, as almost always, Pogacar imposed its law.
Finn Fisher-Black who lived all day on the run, launched a last solo attack, and had 30 seconds left, but UAE turned on the chopper and neutralized his attempt. Pogacar he launched himself and for the victory with a feisty Lipowitz, but as always in this Romandy He ended up giving in so that Pogacar could close the poker game.
