By now whenever Tadej Pogacar is racing, there seems to be no room for anyone else. The Slovenian has returned to racing after approximately a month and a half away and has picked up exactly where he left off—by winning. If anyone had any doubts about the world champion's condition, he quickly set the record straight by conducting genuine dress rehearsals for the Tour de France.

In Piazza Garibaldi in Sondrio, his attack was greeted with a real roar from the crowd, with 70 km still remaining to the finish line, but many had already gathered in large numbers to secure the best spot. What appears to be a perfect move was actually not planned at all, but as the world champion reveals, why not take advantage of the opportunity to make his mark once again.  "Honestly, this wasn't the plan for the day, of course we wanted to win, but not in this way. The idea was to attack on the final climb, but somehow we ended up moving things forward without really meaning to. The objective was to gain some bonus seconds at the intermediate sprint; my teammates raised the pace to stay up front, but at a certain point we looked back and realized there was no one left, so I just kept going. - Tadej explains, analyzing the race - in a way we executed a real team effort because in the chasing group behind me there were three of my teammates who obviously weren't taking turns, and that certainly helped me. I think for the others it must have been a bit demoralizing to find themselves with the teammates of the person leading the race"

There are those who get excited with every Tadej Pogacar victory, there are those who say he makes cycling boring, but the fact is that the world champion is enjoying it more and more and now lives on the wave of that success that has made him the strongest in the group. "It was a nice first time at the Tour de Suisse and it will certainly be a special memory. Both yesterday and today there were so many people shouting my name and I'm always amazed by it, more than others everyone expects something new from me, but I simply ride my bike. I never thought I would reach this level, I just wanted to ride my bike and be at the start of the Tour de France, and instead I found myself with a popularity that I often struggle to manage. It's certainly wonderful to have so many fans, but many times it's extremely difficult, there are pros and cons, but I think all of this is part of the game." Tadej explains, highlighting how in reality fame always has a double edge. Yesterday at the presentation it took a real human cordon to control the crowd that wanted to get close to him, and today after the finish the general euphoria was through the roof.

Tadej is really leaving nothing to chance; in recent days many have seen him training on his time trial bike, and the same was present during the cool-down after the finish line. "I came to Switzerland to test myself ahead of the Tour, I won't hide the fact that my objective here was to understand how I'm doing and I can say I'm doing rather well. This year it will be fundamental to approach the Grand Boucle in the right way; if in previous years you could build your condition gradually, this time the race will be decided in the first few days and you need to be ready"

This morning, before the men's race, Tadej didn't miss the women's race where his girlfriend Urska Zgart attempted to attack on one of the day's climbs also faced by the men's race. The world champion followed her from a distance with great attention and also revealed a detail that connects him to these places. "Today Urska was really very strong and I think she put in an excellent performance. These are roads I knew, and in particular the second-to-last descent of the day brought back pleasant memories for me: I believe in 2019 at the Giro Donne there was a time trial on this climb and I came with some friends to support Urska. It was rather strange because I followed her throughout the time trial with my personal car; I don't think that's ever happened to me before."