Tadej Pogacar has taken the cycling world by storm over recent years, emerging not only as arguably the greatest rider of his generation, but perhaps the greatest of all time. Given this immense talent, there were surely numerous teams following the Slovenian as a youth. One of these was
Soudal - Quick-Step, as former team boss
Patrick Lefevere recently detailed.
In his column for Het Nieuwsblad, Lefevere recalled how he sent
Joxean Matxin (now team boss of
UAE Team Emirates - XRG), to Slovenia in order to give a detailed report of the future world champion. "When he arrived there and went through the list of bib numbers, it turned out that Pogacar was riding behind the peloton," Lefevere remembers with a chuckle. "Matxin spoke to the youth coach: 'Am I coming to Slovenia especially for a rider who can't keep up?' It turned out that our Matxin had not seen it completely right for once: 'He is about to lap everyone, sir.'"