'He will come to my wheel or he will explode' – Pogacar outguns 'real monster' Seixas at Strade Bianche

Tadej Pogačar did what Tadej Pogačar usually does at Strade Bianche. The world champion attacked with intent on the gravel of Monte Sante Marie, where the only rider able to put up any resistance was Paul Seixas.

The Frenchman refused to yield even when distanced by Pogačar’s initial onslaught with 80km to go, and he even succeeded in briefly bridging back up to his wheel on the steepest slopes of the sector. That show of defiance, however, only pushed Pogačar into overdrive, and he definitively pressed clear of the 19-year-old soon afterwards.

“I saw that he was chasing really hard on the steepest part of the climb on Sante Marie,” Pogačar said after winning a record-breaking fourth Strade Bianche.

“I said to myself, I will go all out to the top and then I will see. Either he will come to my wheel or he will explode. Well, explode, I mean he will make a gap. In the end I saw it was enough. I knew that Isaac [del Toro] and Jan [Christen] were there, and that helped a lot to go alone.”

There wasn’t a shred of doubt over Pogačar’s eventual victory once he struck out alone with 79km remaining, and he built a maximum lead of two minutes before essentially managing his effort over the final 50km. He would reach Siena a minute clear of Seixas, who dropped Pogačar’s teammate Del Toro on the final climb up Via Santa Caterina. 

“He’s living up to his expectations,” Pogačar said of Seixas. “The kid is coming to be a real monster on the bike. We will see a lot of him in the future, I think.”

The present, however, belongs entirely to Pogačar, even if the Slovenian was keen to share the credit for this latest exhibition with his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad. Not for the first time in these parts, UAE took up the reins on the approach to the 11km sector at Monte Sante Marie, where their blistering injection of pace lined out the peloton and heralded the inevitable attack from Pogačar.

“I know I probably always say this but chapeau to the teammates today. Everyone did an incredible job,” said Pogačar. “It was just beautiful to see all the guys in the team performing so well and also the young bullet like Jan and Isaac – what a job from them. It was an honour to ride with such a team today and deliver the win. I’m super happy.”

Victory in Siena meant that Pogačar continued his habit of winning his first race of the season (one-day or general classification), a sequence that stretches back to the Volta Valenciana in 2020. 

Pogačar also picked up exactly where he left off last year, when he ended his season with long-range solo victories at the World Championships, European Championships and Il Lombardia.

Above all, it augurs well for the Spring ahead, where Pogačar is looking to complete a full set of Monuments by adding Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix to his palmarès. His next outing will come at La Classicissima on March 21.

“We will see,” Pogačar said when asked about his prospect on the Via Roma. “It’s a great start to the season. We will see. Today was the first day of the year. We go day by day, race by race, and we see how it goes.”