After the second day of full domination at Volta A Catalunya for Tadej Pogañar, the post-stage question he wants to add to his palmares from whether he believes he can win

Winning the victory is never easy, obviously, especially with a 4,000-meter climb and a huge victory. When it comes after the climb of the Pyrenees, in this case 18 ki

However, Poganyar has the gift of a champion to simplify the complex look, and even if he says he is tired later, he actively dispatches the GC attack of the day by Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep) and gives 48 seconds to the nearest pursuer. The way I opened the gap in my life could hardly do anything other than to impress.

Then 2 out of 2 stages, then behind the late breakaway Nick Schultz not to mention a very narrow mistake in stage 1 of 3/3, but has already gone to Poganyal. But then, when asked how many Volta stage victories he wanted, Poganyal made it clear that he would not stop at a certain number.

"If you can win, you will win, and you will not hesitate," he said. "All the 175 riders who started here want to win, and if the team works hard for you all year, not just what you see on TV, I wouldn't say they expect you to win, but that's what they're fighting for.

"So we try to win as much as we can if we can stay strong together as a team."

That day played ideally for Poganyal with the news that another UAE rider, Felix Grosshatner, was down with stomach problems after Jay Vine was DNF in Stage 2. In any case, going to the second summit finish victory on many stages seemed like a natural conclusion to the team's work throughout the day.

"Our plan was to be as solid as possible as a team. We've already lost Jay and Felix also has stomach problems, so we wanted to be strong as a unit. They did a great job on the first climb" - Three Pyrenees climbs, two HC and one cat 1 were on the menu of the day - "And going down to the valley, it was "

"Our Lamborghini tractor, Domen [Novak], was pulling at a good pace, and it was very good. It was very easy on the last 2nd climb.

"That's when the Visma-Lease bike started pulling and that's where things got a bit more intense. But for me, it was a pretty good pace on the whole climb, and today, the weather also got better. I enjoyed more stuff.

"I'm just super happy that in the end I had good legs and I was able to finish all the hard work of all my teammates in this race."

Poganyar's predictive power was not strong enough to predict that Landa would launch an attack 7km away. But there was no doubt about how much power he had to respond, and it dropped the veteran Spaniard.

"I can't plan what Mikel would do, but I knew he would attack. I might have been a bit too optimistic to go straight over him, but in the end I was able to make a gap and set a good rhythm. But it was still quite a long way to the top, so I tried to manage my efforts. It was a long climb and a hard finish, so I was happy to finish when I finished.

Curiously, Poganyar is the first rider to take the back-to-back stage at Volta since French sprinter Nacerbouhanni, who retired in 2016, but Poganyar is not the first Slovenian to do so. In 2014, all-rounder Luka Mezguet (Jayco-AIUIa) took two bunch gallops in Stages 1 and 2, winning a total of three wins in the same race.

It is not yet seen in this year's race whether Poganyar will rival or replace Mezguet's total, but he is two stages in the bag and he is now the overall

"The goal is always the final GC, so Barcelona still have a long way to go and something can happen. But now we have two easy days before the final really hard weekend, and we feel how the race develops and how the guy next day"

That said, when asked if Poganyar had already won overall after Tuesday's stage, Landa had already won the race. After a recurring scenario on Wednesday as a favorite before the game, perhaps Landa's reaction will be even more so now.