05/03/26 10:30:00
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05/03 10:29 CDT Tadej Pogacar eases to Romandie win for 1st stage-race title
after stellar run in one-day classics
Tadej Pogacar eases to Romandie win for 1st stage-race title after stellar run
in one-day classics
LEYSIN, Switzerland (AP) --- Cycling superstar Tadej Pogacar showed Sunday he
will be just as hard to beat in stage races as one-day classics this season.
Pogacar rode to overall victory in the six-day Tour de Romandie with his fourth
stage win of the race, proving too strong for potential Tour de France rival
Florian Lipowitz on the rising roads into ski station Leysin.
The Slovenian star had come to Switzerland this week after winning
Lige--Bastogne--Lige last Sunday, which was his third title in four coveted
one-day classics in the European spring known as the Monuments. Pogacar won
Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders and in Lige, and was second in the other
one-day race with Monument status, edged for the Paris-Roubaix win by Wout van
Aert.
Pogacar was attacked repeatedly Sunday by Lipowitz, who was third when the
Slovenian rider won his fourth Tour de France title last year, in a duel
through the final three kilometers (two miles).
Pogacar eased clear of Lipowitz in the closing stages to add three seconds on
to a winning margin of 42 seconds overall. In third place overall, Lenny
Martinez of France was 2 minutes, 44 seconds back.
It was the 27-year-old Pogacar's first start at the Romandie race through the
French-speaking region of Switzerland that is an early-season trial for the
Tour de France. The double was done in three straight years from 2011-13 by
Cadel Evans, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome.
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AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports
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