🇸🇮 Tadej Pogačar: „The Olympics are important for cyclists, and as a child it is something you dream about. But the road race does not have the ideal course for me. It would be a gamble, so I'm not going to focus on it. I better make other plans.”
"There are three things left for me – the Giro, Vuelta and World Championships" - Tadej Pogacar faces Tour de France pressure but looks towards other big goals
CyclingFriday, 03 November 2023 at 21:57
Tadej Pogacar has stated his love to the 2024 Tour de France route however after many years of focus into the Grand Boucle and two consecutive second places to Jonas Vingegaard, he starts to eye and think of a plan that will see him prepare for races such as the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a Espana.
"The Tour is the most important race in cycling. Nothing compares to it. For the sponsors they just want to win the Tour. Everybody knows it in the whole world, even in non cycling. Other races cannot compare to the Tour," Pogacar told FloBikes. "From now, after my career, I would like to be world champion as well. I won a lot of races, big ones, I won more or less all the Monuments that I can win, the Tour de France two times. There are three things left for me – the Giro, Vuelta and World Championships. It's a dream and a challenge. We'll see in ten years what's going to be."
Having already won the Tour twice, winning it a third time won't be career-changing but the Slovenian is very keen on adding new races to his palmarès. After the Tour des Flanders where he stunned the competition this year, it would be safe to say that Milano-Sanremo, the World Championships and the other two Grand Tours are part of that list. The latter three he mentioned specifically, logically as the most likely to achieve throughout his career due to his natural climbing abilities.
However despite this, the Tour seems to be the main goal for the 2024 season. "I actually like this parcours. The designers do a great job every year. They try to spice it up with different things, like this year with the gravel and the last stage time trial," he says of the route revealed in Paris last week. Although Jumbo-Visma is heading to the Tour with their mind on a third Jonas Vingegaard victory, it is certain that Pogacar will not have thrown in the towel when it comes to climbing alongside the Dane in July.
"They try to spice it up so it's not always the same. But in the end, you always come to the conclusion that it's three weeks and you need hard and easy stages. Everybody is tired in any case, no matter the parcours. If I would design it then I'd probably do something similar to this year."
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- No, it didn't. It has been debunked by the team that there was anything wrong with his feeding. Pogacar went too early and paid the price.maaiikeen31-12-2024
- Strong team around Jonas and pray each day that Tadej forgets to eat in the decisive stages (col du Granon). It also happened this year, stage 11 when Jonas won the sprint (incredible! Tadej was empty).
maria2024202430-12-2024 - Not quite yet I’d say but she could reach and surpass. You probably forgot Vos’ 2 track WC titles that outweigh the total and it has to be said more of PFPs MTB titles are a bit far fetched than Vos but yes they are comparable. It’s strange that with her consistent participation in xc she’s never ever managed to win even one race, Marie Schreiber can at least retire with that achievement ;-)Mistermaumau30-12-2024
- He may be known as “The goat” but I can’t realistically consider him a top ten candidate taking together all forms of cycling. Vos had 28 UCI WC wins, Absalon 33, Schurter 34, MVDP 41 and counting. As far as world championships they are all ahead too Longo, MVDP, PFP, Merckx, de Vlaeminck, TP and at least a half dozen others from long ago are surely higher up, or what criteria are you privileging other than a nickname?Mistermaumau30-12-2024
- and yeah, i’m a ridiculous blowhard for writing THAT MUCH. seriously, f me…OCexile30-12-2024
- this has diverged from being a per se cycling discussion, but that’s cool with me. so i live in the united states. for background, i grew up in southern california, educated at UC Irvine and UC Berkeley, and except for chunks of a 22 year Navy career i’ve lived here most of my life. there are things about this country, the way its social, political, and economic institutions function that IN MY OPINION fail considerably in comparison to other developed democracies. BUT, one thing that i think the US does excel in is that we have an extraordinarily high level of freedom of speech. now, that certainly opens the door for the alex joneses of the world to weaponize/monetize speech in utterly disgusting ways that do actual damage. it also gives freedom to politicians to say that the press is corrupt and should be jailed, like in russia, iran, or venezuela. these are DANGEROUS uses of freedom of speech. but as much as that freedom may imperil the well being of individuals and ideas — like the idea of liberty itself — it’s that freedom that has, over time, marked the SLOW movement toward greater equality and well being. this extreme level of free speech is certainly the primary fundamental right in the united states that has functioned, over time, to actively drive social progress. i mean, quack quack quack, right? the kind of speech that MOST needs protection is UNPOPULAR SPEECH. we KNOW this. but if you can only engage in unpopular speech IN PRIVATE, as you suggested, and be BARRED from a public platform to share those unpopular ideas, then your freedom to speak means very little and the whole project of social change and social progress grinds to a halt. “YES, you can talk about all races being equal to your friends, but you can’t publish any articles making that argument.” “YES, you can say that homosexuality isn’t a dangerous perversion that must be legislated against so long as you ONLY say it to your friends, but you can’t say it on a radio show.” so the problem is, if there’s going to be prior restraint of speech, the only person I’M gonna trust to decide who can say what before they say it is ME. if somebody wants to let me and my friends make all those decisions, then i’m IN. i’d expect a little pushback on that idea though. alex jones would probably like that job, too. lance would love that kind of power i bet. sooooo…. maybe it’s better to just leave things like they are. it’s ugly and messy and people get hurt, but once you SURRENDER that nearly unlimited freedom you’ll never get it back. and yes, society has drawn lines: still can’t threaten to blow up a mosque or share child pornography, etc. — that’s a pretty good idea. but erring on the side of freedom rather than censorship has been critical in preserving valuable free speech rather than seeing it slowly winnowed and legislated away. so yeah, there WILL be another alex jones, neonazis get to deny the holocaust, and lance gets to talk about cycling all he wants. and if you don’t like the source or the content then YOU are free to rail against it, or just not listen. as always, totally appreciate and respect YOUR perspective, brother. and i do get where you’re coming from. there are individuals in the US who have (or are about to have) the biggest platform there is who say things that drive me mad because i find them so dangerous and misleading, but the american version of democracy, with all its notable failings, has survived by preserving freedom of speech in the face of these types, not by limiting it.OCexile30-12-2024
- There is a cyclist, recently retired who raced as a Junior in 1997, and is known as 'The Goat'. Downhill legend, Greg Minnaar......wipperman9530-12-2024
- The road bias of this site shows up as PFP isn't mentioned - who is as successful as Vos, and from memory has more World titles.wipperman9530-12-2024
- his wife was surprisingly accurateabstractengineer30-12-2024
- Its the wrong thing to do the Vuelta after getting exhausted in the TDF. This is going to reduce his career potentialabstractengineer30-12-2024