"Tadej improves every year" - Joxean Matxin on Pogacar ahead of the Tour de France

Joxean Fernández Matxín, manager of UAE Team Emirates - XRG, talked about Tadej Pogacar and his chances of winning the 2025 Tour de France as well as the difficult route that lies ahead and the rivalry with Jonas Vingegaard which will once again spark.

"You can't compare races or states of form. This Tour de France is very atypical, there will be a lot of tension and a lot of nervousness. Until the tenth stage there are nine days in which there will be maximum tension," Matxin said in an interview with El Farolillo Rojo. 

"Here it's not so much about how Jonas will get to the last week, but what the circumstances will be in those nine stages before reaching the mountains". With four hilly days and a few days for the sprinters, there won't be many differences made early in the race, which means more riders will actively be looking for strong positioning everyday which will result in a more tense peloton and prone to crashes.

In the mountains we have got a rather clear idea of how the favourites will be doing but what can happen before it is what may be decisive for the race's outcome. The team has also looked into his disappointing Criterium du Dauphiné time-trial and how to improve on that.

"I think in the time-trials he is doing well. What happens is that there are certain things that we want to modify or that have to be changed. In the Dauphiné time-trial we learned what are those things where we have to improve. We also have to recognize that the rivals are good and that they do things very well, as did Remco and Jonas. We are aware that we have to improve, and we know how and where we have to do it."

Lastly the Spaniard believes that Pogacar is still in an upward trend in his career, even if he might have virtually hit the limit on what he can physically achieve. "Tadej improves every year. Obviously, when someone is already at 99%, any improvement, even if it's 0.5%, makes a difference." 

"That's why Tadej doesn't stop evolving. He improves in that he's not a champion, he's a leader, with all that the word entails. When you are the best cyclist and team in the world you realize that the difficult thing is not to get it, but to keep it," he concluded.