“No other rider could be second in the Tour de France with what happened to him last year" - Mauro Gianetti lauds Tadej Pogacar as 'strongest rider in the world'

Tadej Pogacar's incredible palmares has already seen him draw comparisons to some of the greatest cyclists ever. Despite the number of stunning wins only growing in the last couple of seasons, a Grand Tour triumph has eluded him nearly three years now.

With the Slovenian taking on a Giro d'Italia/Tour de France double in 2024, there's a strong likelihood that the wait will end sooner rather than later. For UAE Team Emirates' Mauro Gianetti, the disappointment of the last two editions of the Tour de France can easily be explained. “The two last Tours, one was down to one mistake of Tadej that maybe he was so strong and so good he don’t care so much. We took a good lesson from that," he explains to Velo.

Prior to the 2023 Tour de France, Pogacar's preparation was interrupted by a crash at Liege-Bastogne-Liege. “And last year, when you crash two months before the Tour, and when he needed to do three weeks without training, completely stopped, it’s no secret. In cycling, you train or you lose the condition,” Gianetti continues. “No other rider in the world could be second in the Tour de France with what happened to him last year. So we are fully confident.”

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So why the Giro/Tour double? A feat no one has achieved since Marco Pantani back in 1998. “For Tadej, it was interesting to take this challenge, because being very complicated he likes it. And it’s the same for us," Gianetti answers. “Tadej is the strongest rider in the world, there is no doubt about it."

“I think the Giro will be good for him because he will just have a few days of competition before the Giro d’Italia and then he will take a complete recovery time after the Giro and before the Tour," he continues. “So the Giro will be an amazing [he pauses] … we can say ‘training,’ but he will not take the Giro as training, he will aim to do it well, to go for the general classification. It will be good because he changed all his race program in the beginning of season."

"He did only Strade Bianche and San Remo and a few races more before the Giro. And the Giro he will be growing every day. Day by day, he will build his condition like usual," Gianetti concludes. “We have no pressure, we have just the opportunity to try the Giro/Tour double. And we take this opportunity.”