Pogacar says he's "satisfied" but still has a sixth stage victory in mind: "That's close to Slovenia, you know!"

Tadej Pogacar narrowly missed out on overtaking early breakaway Georg Steinhauser (EF Education-EasyPost) in the seventeenth stage of the Giro d'Italia. The Slovenian, clad in the pink jersey, made his move just two kilometers from the finish, managing to put more distance between himself and his rivals, though a sixth stage victory still eluded him.

"I saved my energy for the end," Pogacar explained in an interview with Eurosport. "It was a very nice stage, but very cold on the last descent. INEOS Grenadiers kept a good pace, then Daniel Felipe Martínez attacked and I followed. Then I placed a small attack of my own and kept my pace until the finish."

Pogacar wanted to let the early break go, but then dsm-firmenich PostNL pushed on "crazy" descent

Wednesday was a rather bizarre day in this Giro, with the peloton behaving in a very strange way. Dsm-firmenich PostNL caught up with the breakaways halfway through the stage, but then let some people break away again, while INEOS Grenadiers seemed to do pointless lead work on the final climb. "After the first descent, Domen Novak asked if he should do some lead work, but I told him to just let the early break go. In addition, dsm-firmenich PostNL caused an explosion in the peloton with a crazy descent. It was indeed a weird day, yes."

Pogacar made his move two kilometers from the finish, when Steinhauser had essentially already won. The Slovenian had allowed the German to snag the victory, after he had overtaken him in the final kilometers of the queen stage to Livigno. "I'm very happy that Steinhauser won. He did a great job on the breakaway and we'll hear a lot more from him in the future. For me, it also feels like a victory."

Continue reading below the photo.

Pogacar eyes stage over Monte Grappa: "That's close to Slovenia, you know"

Pogacar narrowly missed out on a sixth stage win (and a fifth in the pink leader's jersey). Achieving this would see him match Eddy Merckx, and the UAE team leader is also eyeing the Saturday stage over Monte Grappa. "I've been satisfied for a while now, everything is a bonus from now on. The goal is still to not do anything stupid, even in tomorrow's flat stage. An accident can always happen there, so we're taking it day by day. Hopefully, Molano has some luck on Thursday. The breakaways will probably do well on Friday, but Saturday over Monte Grappa seems appealing. It's close to Slovenia, so there will undoubtedly be a lot of Slovenians alongside the road."

Loyal companion Rafal Majka also had a word. "We weren't going for the stage win today, but it was cold on the descents. That made it one of the tougher stages, as it was constantly up and down. Tadej gained some more time on the others. O'Connor lost time? Oh, we don't look back. We ride from the front."

Watch the interview with Pogacar below.