Pogačar: The pressure for this year’s Tour de France is already there
The start of this year’s Tour de France may be less than two months away, but Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) is already involved in the preparations for the hunt for another yellow jersey.
“The pressure for this year’s Tour is already present, but it gives me additional motivation,” said Pogačar RTV Slovenia.
“I’m going on the Tour with an approach so I can repeat again and win the yellow jersey for the third time.”
The two-time winner said that he is slowly stepping up training, which he has recently been doing on domestic roads in Slovenia, after he interrupted the last race block after his mother’s death to support his fiancée Urška Žigart.
However, Pogačar will soon move on and embark on a multi-stage Tour de France to add to his work the Tour of Flanders exploring the 5th stage pavers ahead of a three-week block of altitude training in Livigno, Italy.
“Next weekend I’m going to the Pyrenees to see the stages of this year’s race, then the chronometer and then three stages in the Alps,” Pogačar said.
“I’ll be busy before altitude training, we’re already on the Tour.”
The UAE Team Emirates recently announced that Pogačar and his teammates will train at a height in Livigno, near the Italian-Swiss border and Sankt Moritz.
Pogačar said that before the Tour de France he will be looking for himself in the second round of races, as he will return home to defend the title of the Tour de Slovenia from 15 to 19 June, to “return to competitive rhythm and get used to to a large group, seizures and high heart rate ”.
“After the Tour of Slovenia, I don’t know what awaits me in the meantime, maybe I’ll go to the heights for another week, and then I’ll go to Copenhagen to start the Tour,” said Pogačar.
Pogačar named Slovenian Primož Roglič his biggest competitor at the Tour de France in 2022.
Roglič took second place in 2020, while Pogačar took over the Slovenian’s lead in the time trial on the penultimate stage. In 2021, however, the three-time winner of the Vuelte a España failed to reach Paris and eventually gave up after two severe accidents in the early stages of the race.
Knee pain has affected this season as Roglič has not raced since Itzuli in the Basque Country in early April, but his Jumbo-Visma team said last week that after a rehabilitation period he is now increasing to full training load when he is at the helm. to a team training camp in Sierra Nevada, Spain.
However, Roglič’s knee problems do not seem to have changed Pogačar’s respect for the threat he poses in the yellow race.
“We drive each other to the finish line, everyone wants to win for their team. It will be the same on the Tour, “Pogačar told RTV Slovenia.
“I’m already looking forward to this duel – of course there are others – but it also seems to me that Primož is the most dangerous for me.”