"I immediately saw that Tadej was different from other cyclists" - Super-agent Alex Carera explains what makes Pogacar special
Cycling
Tadej Pogacar has had one of the all-time great years in 2024. Proving to have the 'Midas Touch', the Slovenian leader of UAE Team Emirates secured two Grand Tours, two monuments, a World Championship title and much more this campaign, much to the delight of his agent Alex Carera.
Having formerly guided the career of peloton superstars such as Chris Froome and Vincenzo Nibali among others over the years, Carera knows a cycling talent when he sees one. In Pogacar though, the super-agent found his true jewel. "I met him for the first time in Slovenia, because I always go where a rider lives. I was there with my brother and Andrej Hauptman, who is now team manager at UAE Team Emirates," he recalls in conversation with Wieler Revue. "I immediately saw that Tadej was different from other cyclists. At a young age he already had a great personality. He was a calm and quiet person, but his ideas about what he wanted to achieve were already crystal clear at the age of eighteen: he was going for the top."
Going even further than the great Eddy Merckx ever managed in 2024, Pogacar has already cemented his status as one of the greatest of all time, despite being only 26 years old. "I wasn't really surprised by his great season. I saw an incredibly motivated guy in everyday life. Someone who followed the nutrition plan to the letter, who loves working with his new trainer and who also has the right mindset," Carera assesses. "If all that is in order, success will follow automatically for someone with so much talent. Also important: he has learned from mistakes he made in previous years. And he has not had any bad luck in 2024. Last year he crashed in Liège-Bastogne-Liège and his preparation for the Tour de France was simply not good enough."
As mentioned, Pogacar is not the first superstar of the peloton to come under Carera's guidance, so what comparisons can be drawn between the likes of Pogacar, Froome and Nibali? "What is striking is that champions have the same mentality. The character trait of a champion is that after a race, whether they win or lose, they already focus on the next goal," the agent answers. "A second characteristic of riders like Pogacar, Nibali and Froome is that their fathers are not too involved in their careers. They follow their sons closely, but let them do what they have to do."
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