Giro d’Italia Stage 1 was made for puncheurs as it had the San Vito (1.4 km, 9.4%) climb in the last 5 kilometres. Tadej Pogačar, the huge favourite for the stage, dropped almost everyone on San Vito except Ecuadorian champion Jhonathan Narvaez, whilst pushing all-time great watts.
UAE-Emirates brought a strong team to the Giro d’Italia, which offered a great chance for Pogačar to win already on the first day. Mikkel Bjerg started the Colle della Maddalena climb (6.1 km, 7.4%) at a fierce pace, making good climbers like Thymen Arensman, Michael Woods, Romain Bardet, Florian Lipowitz drop and suffer already on the first day. UAE-Emirates’ pulling slowed down after Bjerg, similar to Milano-Sanremo on the Cipressa, not having enough firepower to continue fast. Rafal Majka was left to pull on the second part of the climb but needed to hold himself back for the valley yet to come. The peloton did it in 15:30 min with 6.10 ᵉW/Kg.
The decisive climb was going to be San Vito, which was in the last five kilometres of the race. Quinten Hermans in the peloton before it burned 2,451 kilojoules for 3:05h. Low intensity overall with 12.41 kj/kg/h but as the Maddalena climb was not far from San Vito, the legs were hurting but not too fatigued.
Everyone knew Tadej Pogačar would try to attack on San Vito, which he did already at the start, as there was a group of riders ahead of him who attacked in the valley after Maddalena. From the peloton Julian Alaphilippe tried to follow the Slovenian but was dropped fast as the counter-group with Schachmann was reeled in. Only Jhonatan Narvaez could sustain the huge effort in the draft and gave his all to barely hold the wheel of the great champion. The UAE superstar flew past everyone and crossed the climb first.
Pogačar on San Vito averaged 8.74 ᵉW/Kg for 3:34 min, while Narvaez in the draft did 8.46 ᵉW/Kg. Cian Uijtdebroeks, Geraint Thomas, Alexey Lutsenko and other strong riders lost 16 seconds on San Vito, pushing 7.83 ᵉW/Kg for 3:50 min. Schachmann who attacked before San Vito caught Pogačar and Narvaez on the descent and lost 23 seconds on the climb, doing 7.63 ᵉW/Kg for 3:57 min. The German had a good lead before the Pogačar attack but also had to invest more energy to join the chase group and pull on the flat ahead of the peloton.
It is hard to confidently evaluate short climbing performances as there is a higher speed and the climbs are short and sometimes irregular like San Vito, which leads to a bigger error margin in the calculations. 8.74 ᵉW/Kg for 3:34 min is an extremely good performance. On Cote de Pike in the Tour de France 2023 Stage 1 Pogačar and Victor Lafay did 7.98 ᵉW/Kg for 4:24 min.
To win the 2023 La Fleche Wallonne, Pogačar on Mur de Huy pushed 8.76 ᵉW/Kg for 2:46 min. The fatigue in La Fleche was way higher but based on pure watts, Pogačar today was at a different level as he has improved since that race and is fresh in Grand Tour shape. The best Mur de Huy performance of all time was performed by Alejandro Valverde (2014, 2:41 min, 8.97 ᵉW/Kg), Primož Roglič (2021, 2:41 min, 8.97 ᵉW/Kg), Julian Alaphilippe (2021, 2:41 min, 8.91 ᵉW/Kg and 2019 8.93 ᵉW/Kg for 2:50 min) and Jakob Fuglsang (2019, 8.98 ᵉW/Kg for 2:50 min).
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Narvaez had a ride of his life yesterday, with those numbers… Also Pogi performed extremely well, looking around, slowing down a bit then accelerating again. Can this man get a team he deserves? Schachmann also very strong, good job