Pello Bilbao talks about the World Championships, Spain's plan and Tadej Pogacar: "He is predictable, he doesn't attack you by surprise"
Cycling
With just a handful of hours to go before the start of the elite men's road race at the Zurich 2024 World Championships, Pello Bilbao gave an interview to Marca, where he spoke about his options, his current relationship with coach Pascual Momparler, the tactics of the Spanish team for the race and Tadej Pogacar, who he said is usually predictable, but still you can't follow him.
"I was looking forward to coming to a World Championship with guarantees and experience, with an attractive circuit. We have reason to be excited. We will have a strong team for Sunday."
The group
"The way the race is expected to be, with so much aggressiveness, I think that in many moments it will be good to have several tricks and to be able to move early in phases a little before the most decisive one. It is clear that, in the end, we are many experienced riders. Almost all of us have had good results in the last few races. It's difficult for the coach to organize all this."
Spain's tactics
"We haven't talked too much yet about strategy. It could be. In the end, the course fits me like a glove and I come with the confidence of a good result in Montreal. It was one of the best moments of the season. I'm fresh to face 270 kilometers. I'm well prepared."
His relationship with Momparler
"It was a spur of the moment thing. I am not a spiteful person. It's true that, at the time, we didn't understand each other well. And the decision didn't sit well with me, but that's how it stayed. Although people want to turn it around and think that, on subsequent occasions, I have not gone with the national team because of a bad relationship, that is totally wrong. There have simply not been times when I felt confident to go to the World Championships because of the routes or the time of the season, but this year I told him from the beginning that I wanted to come. He agreed. We've had it in mind from the start and the fact that I dropped out of the Tour has made me come more in progression and maybe with more freshness."
Bringing down Slovenia
"I think we have to provoke the situation from afar. I see that, if we allow Slovenia to lead the road tied up until the last kilometers, it will be impossible to stop Pogacar (or even Roglic). We have a team with several assets to send people ahead. We are aware that we are not used to racing for selections. It's strange because this group doesn't work together all year. Situations can arise that are difficult to foresee."
Tadej Pogacar
"Normally, he is predictable. He doesn't attack you by surprise. He even often says where he's going to attack. But it's practically impossible to follow him. In fact, sometimes a rider tries to follow him and he's not even able to follow the next group. You feel so much superiority from him that you start to think what is the next best option."
Just in
Popular news
Latest comments
- Avoiding him is a good strategy, you get more wins and then you can compete in the TDF relatively relaxed. Pit yourself against Pogi and not only there will be no wins, it will be considerable mental setbackabstractengineer21-12-2024
- If you hold onto then, you blowup in a minute and then you finish 5 minutes down like Ben O'Connorabstractengineer21-12-2024
- Based on what argument?Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Agreed except the length of climbs, pretty sure you can stretch that to about a km unless we’re talking about half a dozen in quick succession.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Lot of contradictory information floating around world cup contenders, someone should do some tidying up.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- A bit much to suggest that Pogacar is better than MvdP on most terrains. The only terrain Pogacar is clearly better is long climbs, on any other terrain they are pretty even except flat cobbles and short and steep climbs (max a few 100 mtrs) where MvdP is clearly better than Pogacar.Velovibes21-12-2024
- The likelihood of RE improving enough at this point to outclass TP or JV is less than zero.verve82521-12-2024
- That’s the most stupid thing I’ve read for a long time, did you not go to school and learn even the most basic physics? Aero depends on one thing only, drag, drag depends speed and the relationship is squared and apart from maybe at zero or the speed of sound or due to side winds that relationship is valid at all speeds, it dies not “suddenly” start at a magic number. Very simply, the faster you go the more the effect becomes important. If you think 25km/h is needed to have noticeable effects you’re delusional, athletic WR are cancelled as soon as winds top 2m/s that’s 7.2km/h, why because the assistance is already too important at that speed and the times prove it. You don’t even consider wind which can significantly increase the effective speed for aerodynamics and you underestimate speed of climbs, 6% is ridden more at 30 than 25km/h, a speed at which early generation high rims were considered to have more advantages than disadvantages. And finally, as in normal races you can’t just switch bikes according to terrain, it’s pretty pointless to discuss climbs as a separate situation, the aero will have justified itself plenty during the rest of the ride.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- If you look at how much TP progressed in that 1 1/2 years you can no longer say that’s nothing. If Remco improves as much he’s a challenger!Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Froome wishing to ride the Vuelta...he won't even be selected for the team!frieders320-12-2024