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news
Tadej Pogacar (Zac Williams/SWpix.com)Tadej Pogačar smashes famous Col de la Madone Strava KOM
Tadej Pogačar is coming to Scotland for the UCI Cycling World Championships, it was today confirmed, and it's safe to say he'll be bringing some decent post-Tour de France form given his latest Strava upload, a destruction of Richie Porte's benchmark KOM up one of the cycling universe's most fabled climbs — the Col de la Madone.
As we noted earlier today on our live blog, Pogačar is the new KOM holder, or should that be king of the Madone? Off the back of his second-place finish at the Tour, the 24-year-old beat Porte's 2016 time during a training ride in the hills above Monaco on Saturday.
Flying up the 9.77km segment to the summit from Gorbio, Pogačar clocked a new best of 23:53, holding a 24.5km/h average speed up the climb's famous seven per cent slopes.
Porte's previous KOM (24:23) now sits second in a leaderboard filled with big names from the top level of the sport, Pogačar ahead of Michael Woods, David Gaudu, Phil Gaimon, Chris Froome and the rest.
In characteristically chirpy fashion, the UAE Team Emirates star titled his ride 'Baiting Richie Porte to come back in Europe' in a nod to the previous king.
The climb, after which Trek's top-of-the-range aero machine is named, has never featured on the Tour de France but is one of the pro cycling world's most iconic ascents due to its use as a testing ground, most famously by Lance Armstrong, and more recently by Porte and Froome.
And while Pogačar ascended the shorter 9.77km ascent via Gorbio, all of history's most famous times are for the longer 13.1km climb via Menton, which rises for a few kilometres before joining the segment Pogačar rode.
Luckily for Porte that means he is still atop the Menton leaderboard with his 34:43 from 31 May 2016. In 2015 however, the Tasmanian said he had clocked a 29:40 ahead of the 2014 Tour, himself knocking 30 seconds off then-teammate Chris Froome's reported best, neither of which were uploaded to Strava.
Further back and it was Armstrong, shock, who held the record before with a 30:47 posted ahead of the 1999 Tour.
Time to go back for the full climb, Tadej?
It is official 🇸🇮 @tamaupogi is going to @CyclingWorlds World Championship 2023 in Glasgow!
Cycling @TeamSlovenia is going to be the strongest by the number of Slovenian cyclists, mountain bikers and BMX riders in history! #ifeelsLOVEnia #sloveniaoutdoor
📷 @AlenMilavec pic.twitter.com/Op4iOMnd2B
— Feel Slovenia (@SloveniaInfo) July 31, 2023
Dan is the road.cc news editor and has spent the past four years writing stories and features, as well as (hopefully) keeping you entertained on the live blog. Having previously written about nearly every other sport under the sun for the Express, and the weird and wonderful world of non-league football for the Non-League Paper, Dan joined road.cc in 2020. Come the weekend you'll find him labouring up a hill, probably with a mouth full of jelly babies, or making a bonk-induced trip to a south of England petrol station... in search of more jelly babies.
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4 comments
Phil Gaimon seem to be there for reasons.
"Worst honeymoon ever"
...is a bit misleading because by the end of the article you admit that it's not actually the famous Madone Strava climb! Must admit my heart skipped a beat when I saw the time, thought it was bad enough that it took me more than twice the record time (on my 50th birthday, to be fair!), if it had now changed to more than three times the record time that would have really been depressing.
Ssme here!