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No one even places on a courageous face anymore. No one even tries to fake that they’ve an opportunity. When Tadej Pogačar is within the race, he’ll win the race. That’s simply the way it goes. There was hope, pre-Strade Bianche, that Paul Seixas, the most recent French wonderkid to be burdened with the strain of a whole nation’s near-50 years of damage, would give Pogačar a run for his cash and maybe keep away from the inevitable end result. There was optimism, too, that former winners on the Tuscan gravel roads – Tom Pidcock and Wout van Aert – might repeat their previous glories. But, nope, to not be. Pogačar received once more, his fourth Strade, and the temper, in the beginning of one other season, is tangibly downbeat. There’s simply no well beyond the person from UAE Team Emirates-XRG.
“I think you can feel a bit of the sombreness from everyone here,” Pidcock mentioned on the finish of the race. “When UAE are like that, there’s not much you can do.” By ‘that’ he means inserting three riders within the prime six – Isaac Del Toro in third, and Jan Christen in sixth. UAE don’t simply win by way of Pogačar, however they crowd out the top-10 as nicely. “It’s just not really that fun, to be honest,” Pidcock sighed.
Seixas, Decathlon CMA CGM’s younger starlet, was delighted with second place. He must be, too. He’s solely 19. But even he pointed to frustrations. “This was the best result I could get today,” he mentioned. “Tadej Pogačar was as he was in every race in 2025 and 2024: he’s one step, or two steps, ahead of the others.”
Pogačar claimed his fourth Strade title. Image by Marco Bertorello/Getty Images.
Wout van Aert, who completed tenth simply two months after breaking his ankle, shared comparable sentiments. Ones of helplessness. “Words fail me,” he advised the media, together with Wielerflits. “You kind of expect it, but he does it every time. You realise the race is only for second place. He forces it.”
It’s to not say that the peloton start the race racing for second. They begin with real ambitions of being the rider to stop Pogačar from including one other victory to his palmarès. But that not often occurs. For Pidcock, who rode to seventh, his shot of glory was over on the Monte Sante Marie – the gravel sector the place Pogačar took off.
“My chain fell off twice on the Sante Marie and that really killed my momentum,” the Pinarello-Q36.5 rider rued. “But I wouldn’t have been there with Tadej anyway. I don’t think it changed the race much apart from taking a bit more out of me. It’s so difficult when you’re in the group behind and you know the race is gone. You can always think that this is just the race now, but it’s not really how it is when one guy is in front.”
Seixas endured his personal peculiar points. “It was a bit strange,” he mirrored. “When he [Pogačar] attacked, I tried to follow but Del Toro blocked me. Not once or twice, but three times. I was held up. It was a game and they decided to play it that way. I had to close the gap alone but when Tadej is ahead of you, 20 or 30 metres is obviously too much. I tried to get back on his wheel and was very close, but it was 500m too long. He controlled his effort, and he didn’t want me on his wheel. It was really tough. After Pogačar broke away, I was already with Del Toro, but he didn’t want to take over. That was understandable though because he had Tadej in front.”
Though Pidcock was downbeat, each Seixas and Van Aert might take coronary heart from their performances. The latter provided that this was solely his second race again – “I’m still missing something, but not much to be in that group behind Pogačar. I’m happy with that,” he mentioned – and the previous as a result of he’s the rising star. “That I finished second and managed to get him [Del Toro] off my wheel was incredible,” Seixas smiled. “I’m very happy with second place. It’s incredible to be here.” His time will come. He will likely be a future Strade winner. But he’ll most likely have to attend till the Pogačar period is a factor of the previous.
Cover picture: Tim de Waele/Getty Images
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