Tadej Pogañar said that at this year's Volta a Catalunya, the Tour de France champion managed to break through the harsh weather conditions and claim both a stage victory and an overall lead towards the first summit finish of Vallter 2000.

In the early stages Pogañar and his UAE team Emirates teammate Domen Novak had played a practical joke on a bunch hiding in some convenient bushes after an early attack, but when it came to the last climb of the day, the Slovenians were clearly deadly earnest.

With subzero rain, sleet, fog and temperatures appearing to plummet towards zero, Poganyal lived up to its status as an overwhelming pre-race favorite with an attack about 7km from the summit. 

In San Feliu de Guixols on Monday, the Slovenian missed a stage win as he waited too long for a fraction to chase nick Schultz (Israel Premiertech). But this time there was no such hesitation, and by the summit, Poganyar's dominance was open at 1:25 with his closest chaser Mikel Landa (Soudal-QuickStep). 

Pogañar was cautious about the overall winning potential and, in the remaining 5 stages, not only lost his precious climbing teammate Jay Vine to illness, but also a lot of time left for more fights. But it's no exaggeration to say that after just 2 days of racing, Volta A Catalunya in 2024 is already going to lose him.

"In the first part of the race, Israel helped a little, but it was more or less all of us to control the race," pogañar said at the post-race press conference "and in the last Pavel [Sivakov], Marc [Soler] and João [Almeida] did a great job on the climb.

"Joanne told me she didn't feel very good at first, but when I pulled, he destroyed all the fields and at one moment I thought he was good enough to be able to go with me.

"We already had a little gap, but he told me to try to finish solo. I knew it was going to be a long way to the top, but I had great support on the radio too and I was thinking, maybe, here, so I gave it all to the top" – he joked and gestured to the sides of the cold tent, without heating anything the press conference took place – "They would have a press conference in a warm room.

Press Conference Separately, Poganyar's victory is his 2024 2nd major victory, following an epic long-distance break at Stradevianche.

But if his 81km movement on Stellato in Tuscany was evidence of his ability to grind a strong pace on rugged off-road, here Slovenia offered a powerful reminder of his pure mountaineering ability: less than 6 weeks away at the Giro d'Italia, carrying an even greater resonance. Performance.

Poganyal also went on the attack in the first hours of the stage when he and teammate Domen Novak made a strange two―up movement out 165km away, but this was due to the fact that Israel-Prime Minister's technology could not set the tempo, even though they were the leaders of the race. It was because of this, he claimed. But it allowed him to make a practical joke on the bunch.

"No one wanted to pull, so they came from behind me and Domen and wanted to pull, but no one had our wheels," he said. "So there was a little bit of a 100-meter, 200-meter gap, so we stopped peeing and hid in the bushes, so the Peloton didn't know where we were,

for conditions that weren't a joke at all at Vallter's ascent, Pogañar called them "until the last climb." It's not that bad," he explained. I didn't expect it to be that cold in the final 3km, but the gap was getting colder and colder even when the gas was full.

In the same climb that last year's 19 riders finished in a time span of 90 seconds, despite gaining a margin of 1:24 with the closest chaser Mikel Landa, Poganyal modestly commented that the race was not over yet.

"It's a pretty big gap, but the race is not over yet," he said. "Today was a really good day, but we can see how it develops the next day.

As for Stage 3, another Pyrenean stage beckons and Pogagnard refuses to reveal his strategy, "Today Domen does a lot of work and Feri It depends a little on them.

"We'll see how the stage goes, I don't want them to suffer that much," he concluded. However, as the climbing performance progressed, it took far longer than 24 hours for Pogagnar to ride on Stage 2 in Volta, Catalonia