Giro d'Italia 2024 Debrief: Breaking Down Exactly Where/How Tadej Pogačar Won the Race

Breaking down what a historically lopsided Giro d'Italia tells us about Tadej Pogačar's chances of completing the historically-difficult Giro/Tour double

Thank you for reading the daily BTP coverage of the 2024 Giro d’Italia. This coverage was only possible thanks to all BTP readers and premium subscribers. BTP will be taking a short break but will be back on Monday, June 3rd, to break down next week’s Critérium du Dauphiné before packing up to be on the ground for the 2024 Tour de France.

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After taking a few days to ponder Tadej Pogačar’s dominant performance to win the 2024 Giro d’Italia, where he held the leader’s jersey for 20 of the Giro’s 21 stages (the most since Gianni Bugno went line-to-line in 1990) and won with a margin of nearly ten minutes, which hasn’t been seen since 1965, I wanted to pause to look back at how and where he won the race over the rest of the final podium, Dani Martínez and Geraint Thomas, and to analyze what it tells us about his chances of completing the Giro/Tour double later this summer at the Tour de France.

Final General Classification Top Ten:
1) Tadej Pogačar (UAE) +0
2) Dani Martínez (Bora-hansgrohe) +9’56
3) Geraint Thomas (Ineos) +10’24
4) Ben O’Connor (Decathlon AG2R) +12’07
5) Antonio Tiberi (Bahrain) +12’49 (Youth Jersey Winner)
6) Thymen Arensman (Ineos) +14’31 (Youth second place)
7) Einer Rubio (Movistar) +15’52
8) Jan Hirt (Soudal-QuickStep) +18’05
9) Romain Bardet (dsm-firmenich PostNL) +20’32
10) Michael Storer (Tudor) +21’11

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To help us digest the end result and attempt to understand what exactly happened and where mistakes/winning moves were made, I’ve isolated every stage where the top three won/lost time relative to each other and how much time they won(+) or lost(-).

Where Time Was Won/Lost

Stage 1 Hills
Pogacar +0
Martínez -14
Thomas -14

Stage 2 Summit Finish
Pogacar +0
Martínez -31
Thomas -31

Stage 3 Sprint Finish
Pogačar +0
Thomas -1
Martínez -2

Stage 7 Time Trial
Pogačar +0
Martínez -1’49
Thomas -1’59

Stage 8 Summit Finish
Pogačar +0
Martínez -4
Thomas -12

Stage 11 Sprint Finish
Thomas +0
Pogačar -2
Martínez -2

Stage 14 Individual Time Trial
Pogačar +0
Thomas -45
Martínez -1’16

Stage 15 Summit Finish
Pogačar +0
Martínez -3’00
Thomas -3’00

Stage 16 Summit Finish
Pogačar +0
Martínez -22
Thomas -59

Stage 17 Summit Finish
Pogačar +0
Martínez -24
Thomas -24

Stage 20 Mountain Stage (Downhill Finish)
Pogačar +0
Martínez -2’14
Thomas -2’20

When the Top Four Won/Lost Time Relative to Tadej Pogačar

Week 1 (Stages 1-9)
Martínez -2’40
Thomas -2’58

Week 2 (Stages 10-15)
Thomas -3’43
Martínez -4’16

Week 3 (Stages 16-21)
Martínez -3’00
Thomas -3’43

The above graph and week-by-week breakdown reflect remarkable consistency in Tadej Pogačar’s time taking throughout the entire race due to coming in with strong pre-race condition and building on it throughout the three weeks.

Course Type Where Time Was Won/Lost Relative to Pogačar

When looking at the course types where the other major General Classification (GC) riders have won/lost time relative to Tadej Pogačar, we see a clear picture of absolute dominance, with the time gains spread between every type of terrain covered, with no other GC contender taking a single second on Pogačar through any subset of the course. This balanced dominance across the entire course is extremely rare and speaks to just how much of a higher level Pogačar is at than his GC competition.

• Additionally, it makes challenging his lead incredibly difficult since there is no type of course or stage on which any other contender has an advantage. When a rider is the best on the climbs, time trials, sprints, crosswinds, and explosive hilly stages, there isn’t much surface area left to take advantage of.

Mountain Stages
Martínez -5’58 (lost)
Thomas -6’34 (lost)

• Summit Finishes
  Martínez -3’51 (lost)
  Thomas -4’27 (lost)

Time Trials (Individual)
Thomas -2’44 (lost)
Martínez -3’05 (lost)

Time Bonuses
Martínez -43 (lost)
Thomas -56 (lost)

Hilly Stages
Martínez -10 (lost)
Thomas -10 (lost)

Pogačar/Martínez Time Difference Per Stage Type
Individual Time Trial (2): 92.5 seconds per stage (Pogačar)
Mountain Stages (6): 59.6 seconds per stage (Pogačar)
Hills (1): 10 seconds per stage (Pogačar)
Time Bonus (9): 4.8 seconds per stage (Pogačar)

Key Takeaways

1) Tadej Pogačar Is The Overwhelming Favorite to Win The Tour de France & Complete The Double: Coming into this race, only a fool would have doubted the eventual outcome of Tadej Pogačar taking the overall win (even if his eventual margin of victory was somewhat unforeseen), but it did seem more reasonable to suggest that completing this Giro and attempting to show up to contest the Tour de France against a much-tougher field, was a bridge too far. But, coming out of the race, where Pogačar looked better than he has ever in the past as a GC contender, was never put under particular physical pressure, and was able to replicate a high-altitude training block for long sections of the race, barring injury or illness, Remco Evenepoel, Primož Roglič, and an injury-depleted Jonas Vingegaard will be no match for the Slovenian at the Tour.

• This might seem like a recklessly bold statement, but when we open the hood and look at the numbers Pogačar is producing, this outcome begins to look more inevitable.

  • Despite a reputation for producing poor performances on long, high-altitude climbs, Pogačar padded his lead the most at this Giro on the race’s longest climbs and, in the case of Stage 15, ones that took place almost entirely above 1,500m (5,00ft) of elevation.

    • On Stage 20, he cruised up and over two passes of the hour-long Monte Grappa without issue before dropping the rest of the GC contenders en route to a solo victory.

• While one can point out that the level of competition might have left something to be desired, Pogačar’s objective performances from this Giro are on par with some of the climbing performances his biggest rival, Jonas Vingegaard, has produced at recent Tours.

  • On Stage 20, after three weeks of racing, produced 1,500 VAM (vertical meters gained per hour) for an hour on both passes of Monte Grappa while hitting 1,700 VAM for the final 45 minutes of the second ascent of the climb, holding roughly 6.3w/kg (412w) for the entirety of the final pass (51 minutes), and pushing 7w/kg (≈450w) during his sustained attack in the final twenty minutes.

  • And, at altitude on Stage 15, he averaged an estimated 7w/kg (≈450w) during the final twenty minutes of his attack on the penultimate climb, which topped out at 2,100m (7,000ft).

    • Considering that he produced an estimated 6.7w/kg (≈435w) for the final twenty minutes of the Col du Tourmalet (which is at a lower altitude) en route to setting the record ascent time and summiting with Jonas Vingegaard back on Stage 6 of the 2023 Tour de France, we can surmise these are Tour de France-worthy climbing number, and Pogačar has gotten better at these major mountain Grand Tour set pieces this season.

      • And, with time remaining before the race starts in late June, Pogačar could potentially get to an even higher level before then.

• Setting these figures aside, perhaps the strongest case for Pogačar winning the 2024 Tour de France is that, unlike last year, he has been able to train uninterrupted, as he has not been injured, while Vingegaard is struggling through a crash-affected Spring, much like Pogačar was in 2023.

  • This clean run of riding will almost certainly make Pogačar more difficult to crack in the high mountains in 2024 and suggests that his perceived weakness in 2023 won’t be available for his competition to exploit in this year’s edition.

    • While some may point out that he could have struggled at the Tour due to being fatigued from this Giro win, he was never pressured by his competition and could complete the course entirely on his own terms.

      • In essence, due to his rivals' lack of attacking, the race played out in a way that allowed Pogačar and his UAE team to run their own training camp while checking off the first hurdle en route to the Giro/Tour double.

2) Team UAE Has Turned One of Pogačar’s Biggest Weaknesses Into a Strength: The major reason Pogačar was able to get through the Giro without any real challenge while literally riding at his own pace was the collective strength of his UAE team. While they were considered the main potential weak spot heading into the race, especially with their A-team mainly reserved for the Tour de France, they stepped up to the challenge and controlled the race when they needed to while also knowing when to sit back and let other GC teams take up the pacemaking when they were willing.

• Looking closely at the time taken graph above, the two most significant plunges Martínez and Thomas suffered were during Stages 15 and 20, the two toughest stages of the race.

  • These time gains were made possible in part due to UAE’s ability to park their team on the front and ride a consistently hard pace that deterred his rivals from attacking (there is no point attacking off a pace that is fast enough to simply reel you in or hold you at a small gap) and wound up the pace enough that when Pogačar did attack, his rivals were unable to lift the pace further to respond (largely thanks to Domen Novak and Rafał Majka).

    • This feat is even more impressive considering the team used a valuable roster spot on a sprinter (JJ Molano).

  • With a much stronger version of this UAE heading to the Tour de France to assist Pogačar in his quest for the Giro/Tour double, it won’t be as easy for a stronger team to set up a mid-mountain stage blitz (like in 2022), and it would appear that UAE management, due to rider and backroom personnel tweaks, has successfully turned the two-time Tour de France champion’s biggest weakness into a major strength.

3) The Remainder of the Top Five Is Likely Happy With Their Positions: An interesting wrinkle of the GC standings is that a strong argument could be made that every rider in the top five was happy with their final position and that there was little they could have done to advance their placing.

• Dani Martínez (2nd): The 28-year-old Colombian has struggled with consistency and getting leadership opportunities in the past, but at this Giro, he finally successfully put together three weeks of racing where he was largely unshakeable and only ceded significant time to a non-Pogačar on contender on one occasion, the Stage 14 time trial.

• Geraint Thomas (3rd): The 38-year-old finished on the final podium despite struggling for any notable result since last year’s Giro, and losing time to both Pogačar and Martínez on nearly every portion of the course. In fact, he ceded time to Martínez on eight out of 11 total occasions where time changed hands between the top three.

  • Finishing on the GC podium as a defensive rider who struggles to take time on the others is hugely impressive and is a testament to just how much Thomas can get out of his aging abilities with an extreme focus on a few key events.

• Ben O’Connor (4th): In theory, the 28-year-old Australian may be disappointed to miss the podium, but in practice, he is likely happy to have held on to his 4th place after struggling to consistently hold pace with the lead GC group after falling ill mid-way through the race.

• Antonio Tiberi (5th): The revelation of the Giro d’Italia was that the 22-year-old Italian made an incredible leap to put together an impressively consistent three weeks to finish 5th overall.

  • It could be argued that losing two minutes on Stage 2 due to a mechanical issue on the final climb kept him from finishing in 4th, but he likely wouldn’t have been in that position if O’Connor hadn’t gotten ill.

4) There Was Nothing Anyone Could Do to Realistically Challenge Pogačar: It may be easy to criticize these GC contenders for their lack of attacking from Pogačar’s rivals, but it is important to stress that there wasn’t anything they could have done to attempt to challenge Pogačar for the overall victory that wouldn’t have likely cost them their coveted individual placings throughout the top five.

• It can be incredibly dull and depressing to consider the GC battle in this way, but much of it comes down to simple math.

  • For example, if a team wanted to ‘put Pogačar under pressure’ by hard pacing on the front of the peloton on climbs early in a mountain stage, their domestiques, who are likely heavier than Pogačar, would have to get to the front to pace at, or just below, threshold, which may be around 410-430 watts.

    • Due to Pogačar’s lighter weight and the slight benefit of drafting in the wheels behind, he may only be pushing 370-380 watts to stay in the ground. Since this is far below his threshold, which is likely currently around 450 watts, outside of illness, injury, or a severe fueling mistake (which becomes less and less likely due to his stronger team and the constant presence of teammates), he simply won’t be under pressure at this pace.

      • Not only will Pogačar not be stressed about this increase in pace, but it only serves to soften up the rest of the GC contenders so that his eventual gap when he does inevitably attack will be larger than it would have been otherwise.

        • Having riders lighter than Pogačar pace wouldn’t work either since they won’t be able to push enough watts to get him out of Zone 3 in the wheels.

  • Also, Romain Bardet, who finished 9th overall, proved that attempting to slip into early breakaways to make up chunks of time was a flawed strategy since UAE was able to keep the pace hard enough to reel in the breakaway and drop the attacking rider(s), and/or punish them the following day by setting a hard pace that dropped any riders ambitious enough to attack the stage prior.

• And, as Pogačar proved when he attacked on Stage 15, his ability just to go so much faster than the rest on the toughest climbs meant that even if some form of mountain stage raid was successful in leaving him 3-4 minutes adrift at the base of the final climb, he could have closed it in the course of a single climb if he truly needed to.

Full 2024 Giro d’Italia Stage Breakdown List (become a premium member to receive daily stage breakdowns):
Stage 1
Stage 2
Stage 3
Stage 4
Stage 5
Stage 6
Stage 7
Stage 8
Stage 9
First Rest Day
Stage 10
Stage 11
Stage 12
Stage 13
Stage 14
Stage 15
Rest Day #2
Stage 16
Stage 17
Stage 18
Stage 19
Stage 20
Stage 21