"Tadej would have won that Vuelta" - Gianetti recalls first talk with Pogacar, excess weight and Grand Tour debut

Tadej Pogacar is currently the best athlete in cycling, but as all riders did, he had his own origin story in the sport and World Tour. Team manager Mauro Gianetti recalls the 2018 and 2019 seasons, in which the Slovenian was in talks with the team, was signed, and showed his true potential with a breakthrough year on the World Tour.

“Our sporting manager Matxin had been following Tadej for a long time. After he impressively won the Tour de l’Avenir in 2018 without team support, I met him in person for the first time at our service course in Milan," Gianetti shared with Wielerflits. "We signed our first contract with him there. You could immediately tell he had charisma. He was open-minded and incredibly eager to learn as much as possible. He was only 19, but he knew exactly what he wanted.”

The Slovenian was already a prominent and well-known talent at the time, but UAE did not know they had hit a gold mine. Pogacar was not the only rider that was in conversations with that team at the time, it included many other world-class under-23 riders. "That year, we also spoke with guys like Brandon McNulty, Mikkel Bjerg, João Almeida, and Marc Hirschi, who were also born in 1998. Tadej was much more mature. Much calmer, didn't need many words".

"He listened attentively and immediately saw the bigger picture. He asked what he needed to do to improve. How he should approach things. Yes, I immediately knew this was a special guy. You sensed a kind of energy. He was confident he could become a champion, but without arrogance".

That work then began to pay off, but immediately his base power output was enough for him to take his first pro win at the Volta ao Algarve where he also won the overall classification; win also the queen stage and GC at the Tour of California, as well as other strong results. This improvement mostly came as a result of quick weight loss.

"Were you immediately convinced that he had the potential to become one of the best cyclists? At that time, he was actually still a bit overweight. He weighed at least four kilograms more than he does now (in 2025, ed.)," Gianetti reveals. He currently weights around 65 or 66Kgs, so at the time most likely 69 to 70Kg.

But UAE had already seen through this. "On the long climbs, he beat the best climbers his age. We had expectations, of course, but I couldn't have dreamed at that time that Tadej would grow into the cyclist he is today. Nobody expected that. Yet, even then, I was convinced he could go further than all those other talents".

It's a special mix of an athlete that is physically and mentally gifted towards the demands of the sport. Gianetti could see it right away: "He had something special. I felt a kind of energy. It reminded me of my first encounter with Roger Federer at the Olympic Games in Sydney. We were both competing for the Swiss team. Federer was 18 years old and ranked 34th in the world. When I spoke to him, you could sense in everything that he had something special. I was already convinced then that he could become number 1 in the world. I felt the same about Tadej. I had the feeling he had something special too".

And at his Vuelta debut, in 2019, he says he could've even won it. Pogacar took his first win in Andorra on stage 9, then again at Los Machucos, and finally on Plataforma de Gredos. This was the first time he put on an incredible solo win, attacking from around 40 kilometers to the finish and gaining 1:30 minutes over his closest competitors. It's a tough ask, but he argues if Movistar hadn't worked on that day to control the gap (for Alejandro Valverde and Nairo Quintana who were second and third) he could've taken the red jersey from Primoz Roglic.

"It's because Movistar gave full throttle at one point; otherwise, Tadej would have won that Vuelta instead of Primož Roglic. But hey, that's cycling. In that first year with us, he started with the Tour Down Under, which he finished thirteenth. That's the only stage race among the pros where he didn't finish in the top ten, because our team director made a tactical error."

"He went on to win the Tour of the Algarve and the Tour of California, but that Vuelta was truly the pinnacle. He had a bad day in that race, but you could see him getting stronger again towards the end. That was indeed the day I got confirmation that Tadej was truly special". The rest is history...