Monument Winners 2023 🚴♂️🏛️⭐️ Mathieu van der Poel 🇳🇱 MSR & P-R Tadej Pogačar 🇸🇮 RVV & LOM Remco Evenepoel 🇧🇪 LBL
Tadej Pogacar: "Maybe the fact that I had to prepare for the Tour of Flanders and the Ardennes classics this year cost me the Tour"
CyclingFriday, 03 November 2023 at 10:55
Tadej Pogacar had the unfortunate luck of finishing second at the Tour de France two years in a row. In both he suffered from one bad day which saw him lose a lot of time to Jonas Vingegaard, however he believes that his focus and crash in the spring classics cost him the legs he needed in France.
“Maybe the fact that I had to prepare for the Tour of Flanders and the Ardennes classics this year cost me the Tour. It's not an ideal combination, but I love racing and taking on new challenges," Pogacar said in an interview with FloBikes. "I would find it difficult to only focus on the month of July, while I know that I can also perform well in the first and last part of the season.”
Pogacar is a rider that displays tremendous passion for cycling and has over the past few years changed his calendar often to look for new races and goals - often succeeding. His meteoric rise in the cobbled classics, culminating at the Tour of Flanders this year, saw him grow as a leading figure for the classics as well as the Grand Tours. His incredibly versatility and talent also sees him able to fight for wins all year round all over the world.
However at Liège-Bastogne-Liège he took a rare but hard crash and suffered a wrist fracture. This kept him off the road for several weeks, whilst Vingegaard prepared for the Tour de France in what looked to be ideal conditions. “That certainly didn't help. If you have to train on rollers for six weeks, you are not ready for three weeks of climbing and sprinting. You already have to do a lot in the two months after Liège and then there was that wrist injury. It was just too much. I didn't have the necessary foundation.”
Whilst the two looked almost evenly matched throughout the first two weeks of the Tour, in the third Vingegaard kicked it up a notch that no-one could match, first dealing a huge blow in the individual time-trial, but then Pogacar completely cracked at the Col de la Loze. He recovered to still finish on the World Championships and win Il Lombardia, but he seeks to evolve further.
“That is what I feel, but it is also reflected in my values. For example, I now have more experience, but I can always learn more. My body can still improve a lot in the coming years, although this is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve," he admits. "Now it's all in the details and work ethic.”
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- I think you overestimate scientific knowledge and for sure the spreading of it. There are huge numbers of people in similar situations, if there were an easy solution somebody would be making big money out of it. Nerve pain can have many complex origins or be due to complex combinations of reasons. Even if you discover a reason there is not always a solution. Migraines haven’t been solved either. I have had lower back/hip nerve pains on and off for over 30 years, no kind of doctor has ever found a way to reduce, prevent or solve the problem. It may just be that some people are born with nerves that are too short or get twisted out of position during certain movements.Mistermaumau22-12-2024
- Amazing ride by her and very promising for her future. On a side note, it’s a bit worrying all these wins riders have after emotional moments in their lives, someone will come up with emotional doping at some point. Maybe give them fake news just before a big race to get hormones pumping.Mistermaumau22-12-2024
- I doubt he will have the energy to do that if he continues to do leadout for Phillipsenabstractengineer22-12-2024
- I know several people who’ve tried contacting sport airbag manufacturers and none of them ever got a reply. Might be hard to organise anything with such attitudes.Mistermaumau22-12-2024
- It's the BBC. Who cares outside of little Britain.leodis22-12-2024
- Crawl back under your stone.leodis22-12-2024
- Thanks Dadmobk22-12-2024
- Hard to believe with the advancment of modern medicine he can not find a cause for this.frieders321-12-2024
- You continue to platform these two cheats. With that in mind I can no longer use your site. I know my leaving means little, but, sometimes you have to take a stand. See ya!DJ21-12-2024
- Look at what Froome’s won since his last TdF, stop denying there is still more than possible one outcome to the future.Mistermaumau21-12-2024