“I can now go home, to Urska” - Tadej Pogacar puts family first after Tour de Suisse dominance and girlfriend’s heavy crash

Tadej Pogacar ended the Tour de Suisse with another stage win, the overall title and a final margin of 6:32 over Richard Carapaz, but his first answer after the finish pointed away from the race.

After chasing down Lenny Martinez on the final climb to Villars-sur-Ollon and completing a dominant week for UAE Team Emirates - XRG, Pogacar was asked what came next.

His response was simple: “I am happy with the stage win and the overall victory, but also happy that I can now go home, to Urska.”

Urska Zigart crashed heavily earlier in the week at the Tour de Suisse Women and was later diagnosed with a fractured jaw. Pogacar’s race continued, and continued spectacularly, but his flash interview after the final stage made clear where his focus was turning once the yellow jersey work was complete.

Pogacar had effectively seized control of the race on stage 1, when he delivered a long-range ride in Sondrio that immediately opened a huge gap over the rest of the general classification contenders. He then added the stage 4 time trial in Aarburg, beating Mathieu van der Poel by four hundredths of a second, before closing the race with a final mountain-stage victory.

The last one was the most dramatic. Martinez had spent much of the final climb ahead after attacking from the breakaway and looked capable of holding on deep into the finale. Pogacar waited until eight kilometres from the line before attacking from the GC group, with Carapaz briefly trying to respond before being distanced.

From there, Pogacar worked through the remains of the breakaway. Nairo Quintana was caught first, then Bart Lemmen, and finally Martinez inside the last kilometre. The Frenchman’s resistance gave the stage its tension, but Pogacar still had enough left to finish the job.

“It was a very hard day,” Pogacar said afterwards. “The parcours was really difficult, but we did a super job with the team. Every local lap became harder again. In the end it was just about going all-out.”

The final stage also gave Pogacar a clear Tour de France reference point. The repeated Col de la Croix circuit, the final climb to Villars-sur-Ollon and temperatures around 36C made the day a demanding rehearsal for July.

Decathlon CMA CGM Team lifted the pace on the final climb before Pogacar took over the race himself. Once UAE decided to continue that pressure, the final ascent became a full test rather than a controlled ride to the overall win.

“This is probably what it will look like in the Tour, with that heat and the large amount of elevation gain,” Pogacar said. “It was really good to test the legs, the heart and the lungs on the final climb. I really went all-out and it was really hard, but it was a nice climb.”

Pogacar leaves Switzerland with three stage wins, the general classification, the points jersey and a dominant UAE return that also included Jhonatan Narvaez’s stage 3 victory. The next phase is a short reset at home with Zigart, followed by more specific training before travelling to Barcelona.