{"id":531512,"date":"2026-03-12T13:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T13:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531512\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T13:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T13:52:08","slug":"its-clear-that-pogacar-has-his-mind-set-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/531512\/","title":{"rendered":"it&#8217;s clear that Pogacar has his mind set on it"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;I handled yesterday&#8217;s stage well. It was a very long day, but not too difficult. Luckily, it wasn&#8217;t freezing cold. Yes, I survived the stage well,&#8221; Wout van Aert said to the microphone of<a href=\"https:\/\/sporza.be\/nl\/2026\/03\/12\/wout-van-aert-spreekt-ambitie-uit-in-tirreno-adriatico-deze-etappe-moet-me-liggen~1773304554257\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"> Sporza<\/a> this morning in Tagliacozzo.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t plan on joining the breakaway early, but I&#8217;ll have to keep an eye on things. This is the first stage where the breakaway won&#8217;t just pull away.&#8221; In the finale, the likes of Mathieu van der Poel and Isaac del Toro may be active on the punchy climbs; whilst the finale can be quite tactical if the peloton is small.<\/p>\n<p>But it is an opportunity the Belgian may be able to take advantage of: &#8220;I had already looked at this stage at the beginning of the week, and this is a stage that should suit me. The finale is tough with a few climbs. That might be too difficult for some sprinters, and then we&#8217;ll be on terrain that suits me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Van Aert on Tadej Pogacar&#8217;s Paris-RoubaixOver the past few days, whilst Van Aert and van der Poel are racing Tirreno-Adriatico, their main rival for the cobbled classics <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tadej-pogacar\" title=\"Tadej Pogacar\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tadej Pogacar<\/a> has been once again up north in the cobbled roads of Paris-Roubaix together with Florian Vermeersch.<\/p>\n<p>Van Aert was asked about the Slovenian&#8217;s trip, giving a remark on it: &#8220;It&#8217;s pretty normal that they prepare well. We do too. But it&#8217;s clear that Pogacar has his mind set on it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"&#8220;I handled yesterday&#8217;s stage well. It was a very long day, but not too difficult. Luckily, it wasn&#8217;t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530472,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,82,1422,130976,140532,12290],"class_list":["post-531512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-team-visma-lease-a-bike","tag-tirreno-adriatico","tag-wout-van-aert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=531512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/531512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=531512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=531512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=531512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}