"I want to focus on the UAE Tour” - Tadej Pogacar dodges questions about Paris-Roubaix involvement
Cycling
Tadej Pogacar sent the cycling world into a frenzy earlier this month when video of the UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader training on the cobbles of Paris-Roubaix emerged online. One of the few big races the Slovenian is yet to try and win, the rumour mill was sent into overdrive speculation on Pogacar's potential involvement in 2025.
As of yet, there has been no official confirmation of Pogacar's intention to start Paris-Roubaix this year. In fact, UAE have been keen to put forward the view that Pogacar was simply training on the cobbles for fun and with perhaps one eye on years in the future. Ahead of his season-opening race at the 2025 UAE Tour, Pogacar was understandably asked to comment on his recent trip to the cobbles.
“It was fun," Pogacar says with a wry smile, reflecting on the reconnaissance, but the world champion refuses to give any more insight into his ride, or the motives behind it. "At the moment I want to focus on the UAE Tour.”
As mentioned, this intention within UAE Team Emirates - XRG to quieten talk of Pogacar's potential Paris-Roubaix involvement is not only a tactic of the Slovenian himself. Recently, team boss Mauro Gianetti towed a similar line. "Tadej was in the area because he wanted to recon the Flemish classics with Tim Wellens," said Gianetti. "When Tim mentioned that he would recon Roubaix the next day, Tadej decided to come along for once. They are good friends, that's why. And that's how Tadej is: he felt good and so they filmed it. It was a joke."
Despite these comments, it's unlikely speculation will die out until the day of the race itself. Only then will fans get final confirmation whether or not Pogacar will be riding the 'Hell of the North' in 2025 or not!
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- In Track and Field, there's Usain Bolt in the sprints and Kenya's Kipchoge in the marathon. Though Bolt can quite easily beat Kipchoge in the 100m dash, he probably won't even finish a marathon. Tadej won't beat Mathieu in a sprint, yet he wins the TDF while MVDP languishes in 50th place. Both are great champions in their respective fields, but my admiration goes to Tadej for trying.FredMan23-03-2025
- They went into the race as co-leaders!frieders323-03-2025
- He can win that sprint if he plays it right but leaving tha gap was ridiculous ! A spring after 6+ hours isn't a guarantee for MVDPfrieders323-03-2025
- The climbs are steeper on Flanders giving Pogi the advanatge as we saw before when he won!frieders323-03-2025
- VDP is best in a short sprint, so Pog was purposely leaving a gap in hopes that VDP wouldn't have enough to sprint for 310 meters at the end of 300 KM. Kwiatkowski did the same thing to Sagan at that same point and won because of it.acem8223-03-2025
- Ganna started winning the occasional end of season sprint a few years ago. It's been fun watching him change from a TT specialist into something more.RidesHills23-03-2025
- hey look, an insinuating question from 2 years ago! I mean, sure, announcers mentioned tail wind, but whatever. That wasn't going to matter today, not with the 2 best classics riders of the past many generations (you have to go back to the 70s to see two people dominate like this, and even Merckx and de Vlaeminck never managed to win 2 each in the same year, the way Pogacar and Van der Poel have done in the past 2 years).RidesHills23-03-2025
- I like my statistics: Pogacar and van der Poel have won 13 of the last 18 Monuments and are tied at 7 each (MvdP won his first long enough ago that it doesn't show the more recent utter domination.) Oh, and the last 2 road world championships. Oh, and one of them also won the last Tour and Giro, while the other won the CX and Gravel world championships. I mean, anyone reading this site knows all this, but it's worth being amazed by it all every now and then.RidesHills23-03-2025
- Congratulations to all three on the podium. The final seconds reminded me of E3 a few years back, when tiny little Pogacar had no chance against van Aert and van der Poel, but that was just the last few seconds of an incredible race. Everything from the launch on the Cipressa to crossing the line was amazing.RidesHills23-03-2025
- All 3 of them went to doping control
Front24223-03-2025