"Not the best preparation for the Tour de France... If I were the UAE team, I would be afraid" - Alberto Contador raises concerns for Tadej Pogacar long-term
CyclingWednesday, 30 April 2025 at 10:33
Tadej Pogacar proved once again on Sunday at Liege-Bastogne-Liege that he remains the man to beat in the World Tour peloton. Obliterating all his so-called rivals, the Slovenian put in a now typically impressive display to solo to the win at the Ardennes Monument. Whilst undoubtedly impressed by Pogacar's performance, Alberto Contador does have some concerns.
The root of Contador's concern for Pogacar is burnout. After all, the UAE Team Emirates - XRG has been very active this season, racing all four of the Monuments to date, plus other Classics such as La Fleche Wallonne, the Amstel Gold Race and Strade Bianche, and the UAE Tour back in February. In many of these race, Pogacar has also spent a long time riding solo after launching long-range attacks. According to Contador, these efforts might catch up with the world champion sometime soon.
"I think that from the inside, the people around him must be starting to tell him: 'Hey Tadej, you don't have to start 70-80km from the finish line. We're going to be effective and we're going to save and economise on strength,'" Contador tells Eurosport following Liege-Bastogne-Liege. "I'm convinced that this preparation that Tadej is carrying out, with this calendar that would be almost two months of competition, with races that are skipped but [ones that are] very demanding, is not the best preparation for the Tour de France."
Compared to the likes of Jonas Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic and even Remco Evenepoel, Pogacar has been a much more regular figure so far in 2025. And although this hasn't stopped him bringing in incredible success, Contador doesn't think the UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader will be able to stay at such a high level for ever. "Let's see how the fatigue of a calendar… Not only in the race, but also when you are at home taking care of everything to the millimetre for races of almost 300km," comments the Spanish icon. "If I were the UAE team, I would be afraid of the efforts, the continuous efforts."
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- On one side, he was unhappy due to the TDF no, but i suppose money and other aspects made the differenceabstractengineer14-05-2025
- True, but, Mads has a few more years of collection and his season’s tally will start levelling off whereas Jonas’ should be just starting so even if Mads overtakes him, it’s probably briefly. That now all being clear, obviously the greatest is Tony Rominger, at least that’s their most popular male cyclist, which is another way of saying he must have been great :-) Hey, sorry but if someone’s going to ask rabbit-hole questions, you can only expect rabbit-hole answers.Mistermaumau14-05-2025
- Yeah, “little guy” who already beat Groenewegen and Merlier ;-) Also love how the media overhype anything in cycling, TNT saying this was a HUGE win for the team, let’s go back to using superlatives corresponding to reality. An important win maybe but c’mon, 50 points more than second when we’re at 20000? Had the team gotten 4th 5th and 6th and missed the podium completely they’d have collected more points but NO-ONE except themselves would have written one single word about their performance. Still well done to them for proving that the stage 3 pundit criticism about the little guys was unnecessary.Mistermaumau14-05-2025
- The ranking points between Jakob Fuglsang and Jonas Vingegaard is huge, BTW.. about 6700 ranking points. Mads trails Jonas by 14 points.FredMan14-05-2025
- Greatest ever? Based on CyclingRanking.com, Rolf Sorensen is #1, Jakob Fuglsang is #2, Jonas Vingegaard is #3, and Mads Pedersen is a very close #4. If you'd rather rely on personal opinion, or favorites, or what not, it's anybody's guess.FredMan14-05-2025
- I love it when the "little guy" wins!acem8214-05-2025
- Yeah, TdF is completely overrated, only amateurs and has-beens participate. And little ole skimpy Jonas has only won it as often as Switzerland or The Netherlands or Germany and Australia combined. Prestigewise there is NO comparison until he wins either the WC again or something big coz sorry G-W is basically a 2nd rate race at their level and he’s not won much else except a decent collection of stages, which Jonas and plenty of sprinters win too. Until now, MP is about pulling level with Asgreen who also won stages and classics, was a WC and HE got himself a monument and almost as many almosts as Mads but in a career only half as long.Mistermaumau13-05-2025
- Jonas is a great rider but only rides stage races so i would have to say he & Mads are about equal now. Stage racing in general is overvalued i think... (vs the power required to win one day races)Xrider5113-05-2025
- Jonas only does stage raXrider5113-05-2025
- First goats and now great danes, all we need now is a showdown at the tour of turkey, that could maybe slide into grease. Sorry, always happens when I get tired.Mistermaumau13-05-2025
I respect El Pistoleros comment but that is just the very basic of the least highly leveled cyclist would put in this perspective “that he must be fatigued when tdf come by July. But come to think of it.. The master tacticians of Team UEA must have definitely thought of this aspect a million times over… I see this as purely Planned. Anyone saying the Jonas or Remco or who ever can challenge him come the TDF bad things can happen in day one. That said, Pogi I believe has dialed this down since after the 2024 Il Lombarida… He was seeing already 2025 as it is now. Jus my thought
Everyone knows it's not good preparation. But he's not trying to only win the TdF.
The Mozarts don't respond to the Salieri rules, let him be happy. He was very emotional to try Paris Roubaix; now he's happy. Maybe he will be in the Tour podium but not in the 1st place ... and then??? for sure he will be the Show of the Tour, as usual. In life, it's not all about the 1st place. This spring Tadej had fun and made people have fun. I love him for that. Relax.
Contador is so wrong ! Tadeg witll get plenty of rest and recovery before ramping up for the tour! He has plenty of science and data behind him to know what to do to get there. This isn't the Contador era !
Yes and no. This isn't ideal. But he's not a GT centered rider and that's OK. Pogi with a 50/50 focus is still good enough to contend.
Pogacar had some hiccups in his early 20s, but now he's 26. The past isn't predictive of the future. Barring an injury, the next 4 years or so should be his peak competitive years. He said that he was looking forward to vacation (a real break) and then restarting his training program. He'll be ready. Honestly, it's not the Tour he should worry about. It's the Vuelta, or the Worlds, plus riding his fifth Monument. (Can he repeat Merckx's 1972 and win 2 grand tours and 3 monuments in the same season? And add the worlds?) He obviously tried to win all 5 monuments this year. But it's the end of the season when fatigue will set in, if at all. He'll be ready for the Tour, I am sure.
You are probably right but EVERY rider is different, some peak early, some late, some don’t peak but are consistently always there, some evolve into a different type of rider, some just fade or stop. You never know until it’s done.
The advantage with the Vuelta is that the very best rarely show up. So he can still win on fumes.
If he wins the Vuelta on fumes then what has he got left for the worlds? I think the obvious decision would be not to do two GTs this year because that's just stupid. Winning the TDF, 3 monuments and the worlds is perfectly sufficient for a season.
Contadope is entitled to his views. He's wrong though.
He's right, but Pogi also isn't a TdF focused rider. It's just one of many goals. Contador was TdF focused and he took what else he could while keeping the TdF his focus.
How many classics did Contador win? I'm guessing 0
Came close for Lombardia. His word here would matter if Pogi were a Grand Tour centric rider.
Tadej is rewriting the rules of the sport and how to win races.. he's unique, no doubt July will come and he'll be in his next form peak.
I would tend to agree with Contador, but Tadej is different. I wonder the opposite for Jonas, but he's different as well. The Tour is a race between these two unless there is a crash.
I really wonder how Vingegaard is responding to the crash that he did have. Haven't seen any reports. Last year, he would have appropriately gotten TUEs to recover, and they obviously helped him perform at the Tour. This year, I can imagine getting some TUEs, but differently. Still, it was a crash, it affected the rhythm of his training, and who knows how much that will matter.
I image he is training, I think he has some races coming up, maybe, I'm not 100% sure. I would guess he will be ready to go for Tour, I hope all of these crashes haven't made him gun shy.
The most dangerous job in pro cycling is descending at speed, I wouldn't be surprised if he retired all of a sudden, which would be a big loss for cycling.
They're nearly all on TUEs all the time anyway.
I actually agree. Jonas and Visma put off altitude camp untill May I believe to help him closer to the TDF. I do also believe we will see Jonas retire suddenly and soon
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The space height level of Tp has to reduce at some point, cupla yrs back he some done some classics and suffered in the tour...
This is what I've been saying but nobody is wanting to listen. I don't know if I'm right but I'd like to see the spring classics season affect Pogi at the TDF
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i wonder if Eddy's teams ever worried like this?