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  "description": "Another imperious performance means a near-impossible quest has been foisted upon the Slovenian. ",
  "path": "/pogacar-takes-another-step-towards-a-mythical-monument-sweep/",
  "publishedAt": "2026-04-05T22:24:40.000Z",
  "site": "https://escapecollective.com",
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  "textContent": "The fridge containing just a few tubs of indecipherable paste starts groaning at the back of the outbuilding that houses the post-Flanders press conference. A somewhat uppity journalist sitting behind me, taking the final spot on the podium of too-early press conference attendees looking for some quiet after a day out on the cobbled climbs – and who has also already dialed down the volume on the TV down despite a Belgian colleague’s protestations – now literally turns his attention to the offending refrigerator, as it’s interrupting the flow of his presumably seamless train of thought being double-index-fingered into his laptop.\n\nI don’t know quite what’s set him so on edge, after what can only be described as a both a rip-roaring and yet contradictorily perfunctory day out at De Ronde. His eventual prose will likely read like a mechanical chain of events, an efficient cycling Fordism of which it’s easy to grow numb to, but don’t let that take away from the overarching spectacle: another borderline irrepressible UAE Team Emirates ramp up from Flanders native Florian Vermeersch before Tadej Pogačar had the decency to wait for an hour or so and then rip the legs off the rest of the star riders in the field. But such is the heft of De Ronde, in cycling and Belgium, that the event is big enough, and attracts enough stars into its orbit, that seeing the apex predators of the peloton hammer each other up fabled cobbled climbs could never get boring.\n\nAnd now, the bike rider atop the food chain, Tadej Pogačar, has come loping into the press conference (how else should one walk after 280 km of Belgian racing?!), puffy-eyed but in good spirits.\n\n### This post is for subscribers only\n\nBecome a member to get access to all content\n\nSubscribe now",
  "title": "Pogačar takes another step towards a mythical Monument sweep",
  "updatedAt": "2026-04-05T22:24:42.289Z"
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