Tadej Pogacar opens up on Tour de France defeat: "There’s a lot of small mistakes that I did, that the team did"

Tadej Pogacar took the win in the first two editions of the Tour de France he's raced. He was the overwhelming favourite to take a third title this past July, however had to settle with second place as he found a stronger competitor in Jonas Vingegaard.

“I cannot say that I lost the Tour. Second place is pretty great. But I can say that I lost the Tour in the best possible way. I couldn’t be better," Pogacar said in an interview with CyclingTips. "And if that means losing for some people, then I accept that.”

“When you win, it changes you. You get your confidence. But when you lose, sometimes you need that reality check … That was done to me this year. I know better what to do next year. I’m happy that I lost," he continued. The UAE Team Emirates rider set off with the number 1 bib on his back, a strong team backing him up and great form as he's shown throughout most of the year.

He's finished second in the race, won the youth classification, three stages and spent several days in yellow. However he couldn't get to the top step in Paris, having cracked in the high-altitude mountains of the Alps en route to the Col du Granon, and losing valuable time that he could not recover later in the race as Vingegaard and Jumbo-Visma stayed firm as a rock in the lead.

“I tried to win. I didn’t succeed because Vingegaard was stronger than me. Maybe I could’ve brought home some more stages but I didn’t want that. I wanted to win. I gave it all," he admitted. “There’s a lot of small mistakes that I did, that the team did. In cycling you can’t do 100% to perfection. Maybe only Jumbo-Visma did it perfect, but probably also not 100% perfect. Their tactic worked."

The Slovenian didn't take much time to bounce back, winning at the GP de Montréal, Tre Valli Varesine and Il Lombardia now towards the end of the year. However, the Tour saw a different side of him, one that was beatable - unlike what he had shown throughout most of the season. This has put him in a different position than that of 2021, and will be a motivating factor towards 2023 as he looks to take back his title - with a presence in the Giro d'Italia a possibily, UAE's Joxean Matxin admitted.

“If I could go back, yeah, I would probably do some things different. But in that moment you don’t know how your competitors are feeling and how good they are. You make mistakes in cycling," he revealed.