Tadej Pogačar won his first Giro d’Italia stage with an early attack on Santuario di Oropa climb, while the rest of the GC riders were fighting for second place.
Stage 2 finished on the legendary Santuario di Oropa where in the 2017 Giro Tom Dumoulin won against Ilnur Zakarin, Mikel Landa and Nairo Quintana. The Colombian today dropped very early and lost more than 5 minutes to Pogačar. The record holder is Marco Pantani. In the 1999 Giro, he did it in 17:04 min, pushing 7.11 ᵉW/Kg.
Pogačar after failing to win the opening stage, was probably more motivated today to set Oropa on fire. Unfortunately, the Slovenian crashed at slow speed at the start of the climb due to a puncture and needed a few minutes to catch the peloton before the steep part of Oropa (6.7 km, 8.03%) started.
Filippo Zana spent 2,907 kilojoules for 3:35h before Santuario di Oropa – 12.42 kj/kg/h, which means that the stage was easy to medium difficulty. Pogačar’s domestiques Mikkel Bjerg and Rafal Majka pulled the first part of the climb, while everyone was waiting for the powerful attack.
Pogačar attacked with 4.5 km to go, early in the climb on a steep section. Ben O’Connor tried to follow the UAE superstar, with Geraint Thomas on the wheel, but he blew up and lost more time than he would have otherwise, finishing 13th. In the end, a bigger GC group formed with Florian Lipowitz working for Dani Martinez. The Tour de Romandie podium finisher Lipowitz surprisingly lost 2 minutes and 25 seconds on Stage 1, while today the German was again flying like in Romandie’s Queen stage.
Pogačar climbed Oropa in 17:31 min, losing 27 seconds to the Pantani record whilst averaging 6.77 ᵉW/Kg. The slow crash right before the climb definitely influenced his power. Dumoulin was six seconds slower than the Slovenian in the 2017 Giro but pushed 6.81 ᵉW/Kg because today on Oropa there was a tailwind. The GC group lost 27 seconds with Florian Lipowitz, who pulled a lot, pushing 6.51 ᵉW/Kg. Martinez, Fortunato, and Thomas averaged 6.44 – 6.45 ᵉW/Kg, finishing in the second group. Pogačar’s level was similar to the Marie Blanque stage in the 2023 Tour, where he did 6.67 ᵉW/Kg for 21:35 min and lost 66 seconds in the stage to Jonas Vingegaard.
Bahrain-Victorious had a terrible day, with Damiano Caruso and Antonio Tiberi finishing 22nd and 34th, losing a lot of time to their closest rivals for the podium or Top 10. Henok Mulubrhan lost only 1:20 min Pogačar and with these legs might have won the Campo Imperatore stage breakaway stage last year, where he dropped out of the successful Davide Bais, Karel Vacek and Simone Petilli breakaway.
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