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"He can still do the worlds and he could also do the Vuelta" - No limit to Tadej Pogacar's capabilities says Sean Kelly
CyclingThursday, 27 June 2024 at 18:00
After ending his two year wait for Grand Tour glory at the Giro d'Italia earlier this year, Tadej Pogacar is now the hot favourite for the 2024 Tour de France. According to Sean 'King' Kelly however, this may just be the beginning for the all conquering Slovenian.
If Pogacar can claim Tour de France glory, the UAE Team Emirates leader would become the first man since the late great Marco Pantani to complete a Giro d'Italia/Tour de France double in the same season. Not since Kelly's Irish compatriot Stephen Roche, all the back in 1987 however, has anyone completed the historic trifecta of Giro d'Italia/Tour de France/World Championships, with Kelly backing Pogacar to potentially go even further in his quest for cycling dominance.
“He said he wants to concentrate on the worlds. But he can still do the worlds and he could also do the Vuelta a Espana," says Kelly, a Grand Tour winner at the 1988 Vuelta and five time Tour de France stage winner among many other notable successes in a legendary career, in conversation with Velo. “With the management at UAE, if he wakes up some morning and says, ‘I want to do the Vuelta,’ I think they are not going to say to him, ‘no way.’ They’re gonna ask maybe ‘is it a good idea?’ But they don’t seem to have control like some of the other directeur sportifs had in the past.”
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Could Pogacar eventually be made to pay for his ambition however? Kelly looks back to 2022 for some evidence that may support this theory. “He was racing crazy right in the early part of the season, and making the races difficult for himself. Tirreno Adriatico, riding away at 40 kilometres or maybe even 50 kilometres before the finish, all alone," recalls 'the King'. "I think he paid for that in the Tour. That’s something you’d have expected that the team would have guided him about, telling him you can’t race like this with the Tour de France [as the big goal]. And that’s why he got caught out in the Tour, I reckon. I did mention that at the time."
“So if Pogacar gets this idea some time, and says that he wants to go to the Vuelta, I don’t think the guys in UAE will say to him, ‘no, no way, you are not going,’" Kelly reiterates. “I wouldn’t fall off my chair here in X number of weeks after the Tour, or maybe even at the end of the Tour if we hear that Pogacar is going to try for the Vuelta.”
Although the aforementioned Stephen Roche and the legendary Eddy Merckx have completed Giro/Tour/Worlds trebles, no one has ever managed to win all three Grand Tours in the same year. The lure of such history could be strong for Pogacar believes Kelly. “It’s never been done. And he’s a guy who could do it,” the Eurosport commentator insists, although he does have a warning to share. “I would think it is a bit of lunacy. He could go to the Vuelta and possibly win it. But longer term, what are the effects it would have on his career?”
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