Pogacar's main goal for 2025? "Tadej wants the Sanremo more than anything" says team DS

Tadej Pogacar has had a season that was hard to imagine for any rider in the sport's history this year, can he improve? Perhaps the answer is yes, perhaps not, but we do know from within UAE Team Emirates that he is certainly aiming to have at least one new race in his palmarès in 2025.

“These are exceptional results that have gone beyond expectations. The main goals were the Giro and the Tour with Tadej, but we had 20 out of 30 riders who won this year, and this is another record. It shows that we are working well and we have excellent riders," Fabio Baldato said in an interview with InBici. “...It is essential to know how to give goals to all the riders, not only to go fast but with the ambition to win. There are many races and so if well planned and organized there is room for everything”.

Baldato followed the team at the Giro d'Italia and helped Tadej Pogacar towards the first pink jersey of his career. That was a year highlight for the experienced Italian: “The Giro d’Italia with Tadej’s victory. The Perugia time trial was magnificent and I can say that I was lucky enough to be at his side in this undertaking. It was a magnificent feeling, an inexplicable adrenaline rush, I relived the emotions and sensations of when I was a rider”.

After a month without racing, the team was able to regather itself, have a small camp in the UAE where the new teammates including Jhonatan Narváez and Florian Vermeersch were presented, and the planning has begun for the 2025 season. In Benidorm, the team will gather over 10 days in December to organize a lot of goals, calendars and much more.

“We will have a training camp from December 10th to 20th in Spain and then start with the Down Under in Australia. It is a race that I have done several times and I am always happy to return," he admits. On Tadej Pogacar's calendar decisions most is known, but Baldato hints as well for a greater likelihood of a return to the Vuelta a España instead of the Giro d'Italia (besides of course, the Tour de France).

“He won the Giro, the Tour too, he still needs to win the Vuelta so, knowing his great ambitions, I see him closer to the Spanish race, but we will define all the programs in December in training camp like every year. The wait for the presentation does not change much for the riders, but it changes more for us to better define the team”.

It's hard to improve on the 2024 season, Baldato eyes a more realistic goal of simply trying to match such a storming season. “The goal will be to repeat ourselves. The Tour will remain a main goal as well as the Great Classics. Tadej wants the Sanremo more than anything and we will try to put him in the condition to run it at his best, even if it is the most difficult race for him," he adds interestingly.

"It is a fast and technical race and you find yourself fighting with fast rouleurs, so it is a different race compared to what are his main characteristics, but it is also true that when Tadej sets his mind on a goal he manages to reach it. I am lucky to be in a team of many young talents and so we will try to make the whole group grow, to make as many riders as possible win as we did this year”.