“He’s not out for revenge, but to win” – Mauro Gianetti confident Tadej Pogacar is ready to fight for a second rainbow jersey

The World Championships are taking place this week, and tomorrow is the turn for men to shine. With a daunting route awaiting them, featuring 267.5km and over 6000 meters of climbing that will push everyone to the limit, all eyes are on Tadej Pogacar. Manager of UAE Team Emirates - XRG Mauro Gianetti shared his thoughts before the race.

“We have a lot of riders who can do well on Sunday: Pogacar, Jay Vine, Isaac Del Toro, Pavel Sivakov,” said Gianetti to Het Laatste Nieuws. “There are other high-level riders here: Remco, Pidcock, the French team. On such a challenging course, I’m more interested in teams than in individual riders.”

Gianetti highlighted the difficulty of the event and the strength of Remco Evenepoel, who recently won the time trial. “On Sunday, we saw how strong he is. You don’t win a time trial if you’re not strong,” he noted. “But Sunday is a completely different race: 270 kilometers with 5,400 meters of elevation gain, in these conditions. The best riders will come out on top. Remco will definitely be in contention for the win.”

Reflecting on Evenepoel’s season, Gianetti added: “When Remco was overtaken by Jonas Vingegaard in the second time trial of the Tour, it hurt him, but it didn’t stop him from coming to the World Championships and beating Tadej. It shows that champions are capable of learning valuable lessons from defeats and coming back stronger.”

Turning to Tadej Pogacar’s condition, Gianetti explained: “Tadej wasn’t feeling at his during the time trial for various reasons, but it will help him improve this week. The three long flights to and from Canada and Rwanda caused fatigue, while he also trained hard between his time in Canada and Europe."

Evenepoel dealt Tadej a big blow in the time trial, as he even overtook him despite starting three minutes later. Still, Gianetti downplays the idea of Pogacar being mentally affected by that. "You’re exaggerating. If Tadej had started one position earlier, Remco would never have overtaken him, and Tadej might have finished third. It’s not about overtaking, but about the power and values he put out. If Tadej had put out the wattage he normally does, he wouldn’t have been overtaken, and there wouldn’t have been a mental blow.”

Pogacar has moved on already and is just focused on Sunday's race. “I can say that Tadej didn’t dwell on it for long and was already looking ahead on Monday. He’s not out for revenge, but to win,” Gianetti explained. “He also seems very calm, even though I’ve only seen him once, because I didn’t land until Thursday evening. I don’t think he was far off his Tour level in Montréal, because in the last thirty kilometers he didn’t even have to shift into top gear and still rode away.”

After the World Championships, Pogacar's schedule is still busy. He plans to ride the European Championships in France next week, where he will clash with Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel, amongst others. After that, he will defend his crown at Lombardy, which will be his last race before enjoying some well-deserved holidays.