Tadej Pogačar, a young Slovenian who became a two-time champion at the age of just 23
“We were doing some sprint acceleration and I remember asking for someone who’s not very good at it because I’m not very good at it, and there was one, shy guy who said, ‘Yeah, I’m really not good at it at that,” said Zigart Old age and Sydney Morning Herald.
“We’re doing the first one and my heart rate is 196. ‘I don’t think you know what it means if you’re not good at it,'” she told him.
“We still train together, although my heart rate doesn’t go as high anymore, at least I don’t leave it as high with him anymore.”
UAE Team Emirates sports director Andrej Hauptman works with Pogačar on the Tour, but the Slovenian has been following the career of the man whom he and Peiper call “our son” for a long time, as well as his national team coach and youth club coach.
Hauptman has a similar story about Pogacar’s physical prowess, which before this year’s Tour confused past and current champions about how to improve.
Pogacar was about 11 years old when Hauptman first saw him race at a club meet. “I saw a really small guy behind the band and I was like, f… it’s us [the] the organizer, and this is our rider, help him, he’s just suffering, help him get into the group, because you know he’s catching the group,” Hauptman recalled.
“And then the athletic director said, ‘You mean it?’ I said yes, this one. He said, ‘He was covering the band.’
“He was behind in maturity, he was smaller, but even though he was really small, he was competitive.”
Physical ability aside, those in Pogacar’s inner circle believe that his mentality and seemingly impenetrable sense of composure have contributed to his rapid rise.
Australian Michael Matthews (BikeExchange-Jayco) became friends with Pogacar when he and Žigart moved to Monaco. It was before Pogačar’s remarkable 2020 Tour debut, in which he famously took the yellow jersey from Primož Roglič (Jumbo-Vism) on the penultimate stage, with a brilliant time trial that his compatriot could only watch in disbelief.
“I saw him driving around a bit, with his fiancee, and now I just sent him a message on Instagram saying if he should go for a drive because I didn’t think he had many friends in town. ,” Matthews said at the Tour, where the pair battled for a stage win this month.
“I’d say he’s shy. When you get to know him, he’s a very outspoken and loud person, but when you first meet him, he’s very quiet and keeps to himself.”
Matthews is a car enthusiast and did not compete in the 2020 Tour, so Pogacar told him that if he won a stage he wanted to buy his dream car, a Porsche, the 2017 green jersey champion was on board to help.
“When he won his first stage, I said, ‘OK, now should I start looking for Porsches?'” Matthews recalled.
“He said, ‘Yeah, yeah, start looking.’ And then he won another, and another, and then he won the overall.
“I said, OK, which Porsche now? I’m a bit, I don’t know which one to look for anymore because the range is quite big and when you win the Tour de France and many stages, yes, the range…”
With his winnings, Pogačar founded the Slovenian youth cycling team Pogi Team, and he also bought himself a very nice car.
“It’s actually in my garage right now. I get to see it more than he does because it doesn’t have a parking lot,” Matthews said.
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When you talk about Pogačar with people who are close to him, you feel at ease. A small, shy boy with an amazing motor and the ability to quickly recover from hard exertion, he is also mature beyond his years and clearly respected and respected.
“Looking back on myself, at his age I was also pretty talented when I was his age, for big things, I wish I had the same foundation as him,” Matthews said.
“He’s won the Tour de France twice now and pretty much every other race on the calendar, but he’s still just doing the job and not really focusing too much on other things in cycling; just with friends, family and cycling.”
Basically, Pogačar enjoys cycling as a passion, a hobby, a profession, and he doesn’t hide his falls – probably because they are few – for long.
“Even if he’s not having his best day on the bike, not doing the numbers he thought he should or feels like he should, he always tries to find something good in it,” Zigart said.
“I’m always looking forward to what else he can do, how he can show what he’s got. If he’s having a bad day, he just says to himself, ‘Okay, I’ll have a good one tomorrow and here you go’.”
Pogacar made it happen after he and his COVID-19-hit team buckled under the pressure of Jumbo-Vism’s Queen attack on the Col du Granon, where he lost the yellow jersey to Vingegaard.
The Dane finished second on the tour last year and the Dutch team backing him this season have superstar strength in numbers and are using that advantage for confidence. Vingegaard led the general classification after Friday’s 13th stage, Pogacar was second, two minutes and 22 seconds behind, and Geraint Thomas (Ineos Grenadiers) was third, 2:26 behind.
As the Tour left the Alps and the roads began to level out, Pogacar playfully reflected, like a kid telling a joke, or in this case making a joke, about what went wrong on the Col du Granon, where he proved himself the man.
When asked why it broke, Pogačar said: “I can’t tell you that.” There was a short pause before he happily continued, “No, I’m telling you!”
He realized that he had made a tactical error by reacting too much and too quickly to Jumbo-Visme’s masterful play. That he was left with just five teammates after UAE Team Emirates lost a number of riders and team staff to positive tests for COVID-19 was not in his public estimation.
Pogačar, as always, was focused on the next battle, which was looming on the horizon.
“I think it’s going to be great to see that top-five fight [on general classification]. It will be interesting how we play in the Pyrenees,” said Pogačar.