After a long 2022 season, even Tadej Pogačar needs a holiday.
The 24-year-old UAE Team Emirates leader has been in Colombia for the last couple of weeks, riding Rigoberto Urán’s Giro di Rigo event and then relaxing and enjoying his off-season with his partner and fellow pro rider Urška Žigart.
Pogačar can look back on another successful season. He may not have won a third consecutive Tour de France but he remains the best rider in the men’s peloton, again ending the season as the world’s number-one ranked rider.
With another 16 victories to his name – including Il Lombardia, Strade BIanche, and three stages of the Tour de France – comparisons to Eddy Merckx still stand.
A new generation of riders is emerging in Pogačar’s slipstream but he seems destined to go on to win at least five editions of the Tour de France and become be one of the greats of the sport. Yet he is doing it all with nonchalance and a smile on his face.
Despite his success and a reported €6m per-season contract with UAE Team Emirates, Pogačar always comes across as a well-mannered boy next door who is simply living his dream.
He is about to move apartments in Monaco but only to a slightly bigger one, with an extra room for all his and Žigart’s bikes. He has no desire to live ostentatiously.
“I’m still the same person I’ve always been,” Pogačar tells Cyclingnews in an exclusive end-of-season interview.
“My life changed a lot but also didn’t change much either. I still love riding my bike, be it in training or racing.”
Pogačar wasn’t aware of the meaning of the word ‘grounded’ but accepts it epitomises his character and way of life.
“I guess my parents raised me that way. My father can be quite tough but is always very relaxed about life, I think that’s who I get it from,” he suggests of his character.
“I suppose I am grounded. I don’t honestly feel the need to speak to a sports psychologist or anything. I just try to enjoy the small moments in life and not think about being a star of the sport or anything else. I keep doing what I’ve done all through my career. I don’t want to change.”
‘An eventful season’
Pogačar is also able to look back at the 2022 season with a similarly grounded logic and analysis.
Cycling data specialists Fuoriclasse created a series of statistics for L’Equipe to highlight Pogačar’s career and 2022 season. They are again truly Merckxian, despite failing to secure yellow in the Tour.
I don’t accept that second in the Tour de France is a defeat. I won three stages and the white jersey. If that’s a defeat, it’s the best way to lose.
Pogačar raced for 54 days this year, between the UAE Tour in February and Il Lombardia in October. He won both of those races and racked up another 14 victories, 75% of which were at WorldTour level, representing 36% of UAE Team Emirates’ success in 2022.
He was a stage race leader for 13 days and has now finished on the podium in a Monument Classic 38% of the time, winning three of the eight Monuments he has ridden.
After winning the UAE Tour, he soloed to a phenomenal victory at Strade Bianche, dominated Tirreno-Adriatico, and placed fifth at Milan-San Remo before finishing fourth at the Tour of Flanders on a thunderous debut in which he dominated and arguably should have won.
After a break, he took charge at the Tour of Slovenia on home roads in June, then battled with Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France, winning three stages but setting for second overall. He was back to his best in the second half of the season and won the GP de Montréal, Tre Valli Varesine, and Il Lombardia.
It’s easy to judge Pogačar’s season by his Tour de France defeat but he understandably sees it differently.
“It was an amazing season. It’s been a really eventful season,” he says.
“I don’t accept that second in the Tour de France is a defeat. I still won three stages and the best young rider’s white jersey. If that’s a defeat, then it’s the best way to lose a race. You can lose the Tour by not even finishing the opening stage. To be there on every stage is not too far away from winning.”
Pogačar knows what went wrong and what mistakes he and UAE Team Emirates made at the 2022 Tour and trusts his instincts as he rationally analyses what happened in July.
“I don’t think we need to change a lot. I had one bad day,” he says of the stage to the Col du Granon, where he tried to go mano-a-mano with Vingegaard and Primož Roglič on the Col du Galibier but then cracked on the final climb, losing 2:51 and the yellow jersey to the Dane.
UAE Team Emirates were hit by several cases of COVID-19 before and during the Tour, and they finished with just four riders after key mountain domestique Rafal Majka hurt his thigh in the final week. That was a massive handicap to Pogačar’s overall hopes before and after the Col du Granon stage.
“We’ll use the experience and use defeat to our benefit in the future,” he says.
“Next year we’re going to go back to the Tour with an even stronger mentality, more hunger and see what happens. We’ll all give 100% to try to win. We just hope we don’t have the same bad luck and the same problems.”
Pogačar has always been evasive when asked what happened on the stage in the Alps that decided the Tour de France. He tried to single-handedly take on the dual attack from Vingegaard and Roglič and then cracked massively on the Granon.
He has hinted at hydration or nutritional problems but it could have also been something else. Whatever it was, Pogačar has moved on.
That is simply my way of racing, often based on instinct. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. But I’m not going to change.
“The reasons don’t really matter. Before that day and afterwards I was good and good in lots of other races too. I’ve no regrets,” he says.
Well, perhaps one: the overly aggressive way he raced on the penultimate climb, the Col du Galibier, responding to the many attacks of Jumbo-Visma and then even attacking himself.
“Maybe I made a mistake but I was racing in the heat of the moment, doing what I could do best against two big rivals from the same team,” he argues.
“I was trying to keep the select group together but that day Jumbo-Visma were really strong and had one mission: to crack me. They succeeded that one time. Of course I didn’t enjoy that day and it still hurts but it must have been great to watch on television.
“Riding like that is simply my way of racing, often based on instinct. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn’t. But I’m not going to change. I’ll always race full gas.”
New teammates, new rivals
Pogačar attended the 2023 Tour de France presentation in Paris in late October before heading to Colombia for his holidays. He liked what he saw of the route, accepting the limited time trials but sensing plenty of opportunities to attack in the mountains.
He is set to ignore the 2023 Giro d’Italia, even if several stages finish near Slovenia, and go all-in for a third Tour de France victory.
UAE Team Emirates are ready to back him and have signed Adam Yates from Ineos Grenadiers, Tim Wellens from Lotto Soudal and Jay Vine from Alpecin-Deceuninck. João Almeida, Juan Ayuso, Marc Soler, George Bennett, Marc Hirschi, David Formolo, Mikkel Bjerg, Brandon McNulty and Matteo Trentin all offer leadership for other races and could form a formidable Tour de France squad.
UAE Team Emirates are getting stronger and stronger every year
“We’ve got some great new teammates for 2023. UAE Team Emirates are getting stronger and stronger every year,” Pogačar says enthusiastically.
“I’m looking forward to spending time with the new guys, training together, racing together in the early season and then targeting the main goals together. I’m enthusiastic about next season.”
The arrival of Yates and the rise of Ayuso could take the pressure off Pogačar in some races, allowing him to target fewer goals during the season but be even stronger when it really matters in July.
“Juan did a great Vuelta and showed he’s strong and ready to win even at just 20. I think he’s going to be a really valuable rider for the team,” Pogačar says of his prodigious teammate who battled to third overall at the Vuelta a España on his Grand Tour debut, just as Pogacar did in 2019.
“He can win Grand Tours in the years ahead and so we have options, which is a good thing to have. He’s not a rival; he’s a teammate.”
Pogačar will likely face Vingegaard again in the 2023 Tour de France but knows that Remco Evenepoel will be a serious rival in the years to come. Both are part of a young generation, with Tom Pidcock, Ayuso and others set to emerge and mount a challenge – one that Pogačar welcomes.
“I think it’s good we have a young generation in the sport now. We’ve had some great battles already and we’re bound to have some more great battles, in the Grand Tours and the other big races,” he says.
“It’s a great time for cycling. I wish I could sit on the couch and watch the battles on TV but I have to be in their fighting to win.”
Evenepoel is obviously already very strong, perhaps even stronger than me.
Pogačar and Evenepoel have rarely gone head-to-head in races but are on similar career trajectories, with the 22-year-old Belgian winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Vuelta a España, and the World Championship this year.
“He’s simply a good bike rider. I guess he has good genetics too,” Pogačar says with respect.
“He’s very aero on the bike, has a good watts-per-kilo and then physically and mentally he’s really strong. He’s hard to beat. When we raced against each other this season, he was way better than me in one-day races, while I won Tirreno-Adriatico.
“I targeted the Tour and he targeted and won the Vuelta. I don’t know if we’ll clash in 2023 but it’ll probably be a few years before we know his true limits and ability. He’s obviously already very strong, perhaps even stronger than me.”
The emergence of new rivals and his second place in the Tour de France seem to have inspired Pogačar. Despite his talents and success, he cannot rest on his laurels.
He may no longer have an aura of invincibility but defeat has given him extra motivation for next season.
“I never really compared myself to Merckx and so I was ready for the day when I’d finish second, even in the Tour,” he says.
“Defeat happens in cycling, and a lot. It’s part of the sport and what makes winning so special. It’s given me more motivation for the next season and I’m more eager to fight back.
“We’ve only just finished the 2022 season but things move really fast in cycling these days and I’m already thinking about 2023.
“When you lose, you want to improve and come back the season after even stronger. Defeat at the Tour gives me the motivation to go back next year and win it again.”