American ex-pro believes Tadej Pogacar purposely held back in Dauphiné TT: "May sound like a conspiracy theory..."

Tadej Pogacar suffered a rare day of disappointment on Wednesday as he lost time to both Remco Evenepoel and Jonas Vingegaard in the stage 4 individual time trial at the 2025 Criterium du Dauphiné. Could there be more to this story than meets the eye though? According to one American ex-pro, it could all be part of Pogacar's mind games.

"Pogacar was 4th place! How in the world could that have happened? It’s funny — if it were anyone else, everyone would say, 'That’s pretty good, and it’s still like 1.5 months to the key TDF stages.' But it’s Pogi, and he normally wins," writes Tom Danielson in a post-stage review on his X (Twitter) account. "So is it possible there’s more to the story? I think there is. I’m going with my gut — which may sound like a conspiracy theory — but I think he purposely rode a controlled pace aligned with training, knowing he would finish behind Jonas."

"I agree that he normally only goes to races to win, but this one is different because Jonas, his direct rival, is there," Danielson continues. "The other side of it is how Jonas and Visma focus so much of their efforts around Tadej. Knowing this, I just don’t see any world where Tadej shows up three weeks before the Tour and goes all out, dropping a massive data point showing where his performance level is."

Clarifying his thoughts, Danielson insists that Pogacar's quieter time trial performance is the Slovenian keeping his true level something of a secret ahead of the upcoming Tour de France. "A TT performance can be easily examined and dissected. If you look at Jonas’s performance in relation to Remco — and assuming Remco is better than he was in last year’s Tour — Jonas finished about where Tadej would have finished given last year’s level," he says. "At this moment, Visma has confirmation of the improvement from Jonas, as well as Matteo, but they do not have a clear understanding of where Tadej is. This is just my opinion from the couch, so take it for what it’s worth."

"So what are the signs I see that make me think Tadej purposely held back? The first is his body language and cadence. He started slow, used a much lower cadence than normal, didn’t sprint out of corners, and didn’t empty himself on the way to the line. The second is how much time he lost in the first 9k," Danielson continues. "Tadej off the couch is not going to lose that much time if he’s trying to win. If he were trying to win and lacked fitness, or blew up, it would have looked like an even start followed by bleeding time. He had the time splits from the riders in front of him, so if he held back too much but still wanted to try and win, he had the time and information to correct it. But he didn’t attempt to change his pace."

"The third sign was his cadence. He rode a significantly lower-than-normal cadence for the entire race. One might need to do this if depleted, but he went straight into the low cadence right from the start. He barely sprinted up to speed and then settled into a pace that looked, to me, like a controlled interval rather than a race," adds the American. "The fourth sign is “the drink.” Who brings a full bottle for a 20k TT? Tadej doesn’t even carry an extra gel—so why a bottle? My theory is that he was using the race as training."

"Finally, the fifth sign: not talking to the press afterward. Everyone assumes it’s because he was upset with his performance, but historically, he’s always been open about his shortcomings. His team then issued a statement about 'pacing too conservatively.' That checks out and aligns with what happened, in my opinion — it just was intentional," he concludes.