Ex-pro analyzes Tadej Pogacar's outing in UAE Tour breakaway: "He is making the waters around him very murky for his rivals"
Cycling
Lesson from this year's UAE Tour? Never expect the "flat" stages to be actually boring. The protagonist of Friday's stage 5 was none else than the provisional leader - Tadej Pogacar. Along with his Slovenian teammate Domen Novak, the world champion embarked on a breakaway adventure that left most experts scratching their heads. Real purpose of this attack? Who knows...
"The guy just loves bike racing and views it as enjoyable as most of us view our weekly group ride. I truly believe this is one factor why he continues to improve with every year. The reality is many of his rivals look at training and racing as 'work' and feel the burden of performance. He clearly enjoys the training and the racing as well as striving to become better more than most," analyzes ex-pro Tom Danielson in his X post.
Of course it's not only impatience or some lack on tactical side. According to the American, attacks like today's are what makes Pogacar so hard to read for his opponents.
"I think Tadej wants everyone to know 'you actually have no clue.' While this move and yesterday’s attack were on impulse, I believe he wants to send the message of 'you think you know, but you have no idea.' Let’s face it, this guy is smart and knows people are trying to copy him to get closer. He is making the waters around him very murky for his rivals."
As for Pogacar himself, he probably never quite dug deep anyways. "While it started as a joke I think he likely mentally placed the effort in the 'training' category. With 11 riders and a teammate he was able to keep the overall effort low with short explosive zone work with the short pulls and sprints with much of it below 'zone 2.' Think of your perfect Saturday group ride!"
Danielson also appreciates that the Slovenian work with the other escapees without any exceptions despite it would have been completely understandable if he just sat back.
"He continues to be 'the boss' of the peloton, but the boss who rolls up the sleeves and works alongside of you. Actions like this show he is in charge, but he stays humble alongside the riders always pulling and working with them. He could have easily sat on in the jersey with a teammate there. Tadej always clearly creates his 'advantage' over the others instead of taking advantage of the others’ misfortunes."
Read also
My thoughts on Tadej’s breakaway on stage 5 of the UAE Tour:
— tom danielson (@tomdanielson) February 21, 2025
1. The guy just loves bike racing and views it as enjoyable as most of us view our weekly group ride. I truly believe this is one factor why he continues to improve with every year. The reality is many of his rivals…
That’s why people love Pogi. (1) His joy in racing is obvious. (2). Despite being the world’s best road racer he’s still surprisingly humble and down to earth.
He makes the races more interesting even if results end up being more boring but obviously this is a plus for fans who like to watch.
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Profile & Route Dwars door Vlaanderen 2025
Popular news
Latest comments
- Nice though you have to ask why they call it a wildcard as it’s always pretty obvious who will receive them.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Absolutely, we are inundated by articles (not only in cycling or sport but everywhere from stocks to weather to elections) from self-called or popularly regarded experts making calls without reasoning. They basically know little more than any other informed or interested party and base everything on odds. The fact that they never have to justify their wrong calls post event but continue to get to make calls should get some attention. It would be cool if someone tallied up and recorded their predictions for future reference.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- Yes, I agree but you’re taking risks writing such long posts here ;-) In that sense, the Tourless Primoz discussion is also pretty pointless as he virtually won a Tour (nobody would have counted on Tadej doing what he did at the last moment at that time and I guess it was bad karma for Primoz for so ofren cutting things so fine). I think you over interpreted my original thesis, it was not for trying to explain his current state, it was to suggest there was already mental material pre-crashes that has helped worsen his state, when it rains it pours. I really do remember having the feeling in that past he was more focused on not letting MVDP get better than him than doing his own thing. The seed of doubt was already planted and it doesn’t take much for doubt to grow in all sorts of directions.Mistermaumau01-04-2025
- i wouldn't count Pogi out. Low probability of a win, but not impossiblemobk01-04-2025
- Right now it doesn't seem that his legs are there or that his head is in the racevappaxbipmv01-04-2025
- would have been nice to hear exactly WHY he thinks pog has zero chance in some greater detail. i mean, tend to agree that his chances aren’t GREAT, but some explanation from the expert with an opinion would be nice. MINE is that, in spite of the recon he did where tadej concluded that the course “wasn’t that hard” i think that doing the full route at full gas is really going to beat up pogacar’s 145lb body, to a degree that he maybe isn’t expecting. but hey, we’ll see in a couple weeks. like everyone else, i do think it’s supercool that he’s going.OCexile01-04-2025
- Go back to that era and look at the lousy mechanicals he's had at Paris-Roubaix. Take those away, maybe he has another Monument, Van der Poel has one less, and suddenly all the rules change. Those mechanicals preceded his awful crashes - and you're right, that Tour was amazing. Ventoux, TT, and Champs-Elysees?! Something that Pogacar and Van der Poel can't do, just Wout. It still amazes me.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Oh, the impossibility of this kind of comparison. A pre-WW2 Binda had amazing statistics, and that was one era. During what I think of as the romantic era, Poulidor had an incredible run at the Tour without winning, and Bobet won some grand tours and some Monuments. In this modern era (for me: after Hinault), we've had multiple Monument winners win a grand tour (such as Valverde and Kelly, with Kelly the better rider in general), and then we've got someone like Roglic, the true GC rider. Sure there was a Monument that was kind of a fluke (both Pogacar and Hirschi might have won, and twitchy Alaphilippe deserved relegation), but what matters are the 5 grand tours and all these wins across the 1 week GC races except for the Tour de Suisse (you'd think he'd race it to get the set of them all). In this era, since 2000 or so, maybe he meets the description as best non-Tour winner. How many GC riders have these wins and not the Tour? To compare to other eras really is not possible. He's his own unique rider, and it's been amazing watching him for the past many years. That's about all we can say.RidesHills01-04-2025
- Ease up on a brother!bobo01-04-2025
- Primoz finds ways to win. Too bad he'll never take Tour de France.awp01-04-2025