The incredible anecdote of a scrawny Tadej Pogacar who, at the age of 11, was already destroying his rivals

Andrej Hauptman is the man who found Tadej Pogacar and telling his story he talked about a race in which the young Slovenian was only 11 years old and was one of the shortest and thinnest of the event. It was 2010 and it was a children's race.

Some fans on the road were asking the organization to help Pogacar, as he was trailing the main peloton in what looked like a big effort not to fall behind the best. However, nothing could be further from the truth, young Pogacar was doubling them: "What should we help him? If he's going to double them."

This is how Hauptman told the anecdote in statements collected by Diario de Triatlón: "There was a very thin and very short kid who was 100 meters away from the peloton pulling like crazy to give chase, that kid was Pogacar but he was not trying to give chase, what he was doing was looking to double the peloton because he was a lap ahead of everyone even if they were physically stronger than him. That was Pogacar's competitive spirit since he was 11 years old".

Hauptman himself, who from that race followed Pogacar and was instrumental in him eventually signing for UAE Team Emirates in 2019, also asked for help for young Tadej, but his coach at the time made it clear to him that he was the strongest in the race: "Andrej, he's not off the pace. He's attacked from the start and he's going to double everyone."