"There was a headwind in the downhill sections, and that cost me" - Tadej Pogacar left reeling as long-range attack fails to pay-off at Amstel Gold Race 2025
CyclingSunday, 20 April 2025 at 17:58
It's not very often that Tadej Pogacar leaves a race disappointed. It's even rarer that the Slovenian is denied the win after attacking solo from long range. But at the 2025 Amstel Gold Race this Easter Sunday, that is exactly what happened to the UAE Team Emirates - XRG leader as he was caught and then defeated by Mattias Skjelmose and Remco Evenepoel.
Having initially attacked alongside Julian Alaphilippe, by the time he entered the final 40km, Pogacar was all alone at the head of the race. "I was hoping he’d be able to stay with me longer,” admitted the world champion in his post-race interview afterwards. “Maybe I was a little too eager with that first attack. After that, I just tried to hang on solo, but behind me, there were two of them working together.”
Read also
As the time gap began to drop, the tension levels increased and with every pedal stroke almost, Pogacar was looking more and more distressed as he repeatedly checked behind him to see where Skjelmose and Evenepoel were. “In the last 15 kilometres, the headwind was just too strong. I paid the price for that,” assesses Pogacar with frustration. “Because of the strong headwind in the last 15 kilometres, I couldn’t open up the gap any further.”
"I decided to more or less wait and try to beat them in the sprint. It was a bit of a gamble, and in the end, I finished second,” he continues, commenting with a wry smile: “The finish line was five just meters too far.”
Nevertheless, Pogacar remains classy in defeat, paying tribute to both Evenepoel and Skjelmose. “I knew they’d start closing the gap on the climbs. I tried to accelerate at the base and the top, but like I said - there was a headwind in the downhill sections, and that cost me,” he concludes. "I said it at the start - Evenepoel's clearly in top shape again. But in the end, it was Skjelmose who was the strongest.”
Read also
MATTIAS SKJELMOSE HAS JUST WON AMSTEL GOLD! 😲
— Cycling on TNT Sports (@cyclingontnt) April 20, 2025
The Dane beats Tadej Pogacar AND Remco Evenepoel in a thrilling sprint finish! pic.twitter.com/F7HL9uDgCK
claps 1visitors 1
Just in
Subscribe to our Daily Newsletter today!
Apr 06, 15:11
0
Popular news
Latest comments
- so sad...
maria2024202410-05-2025 - ahahahha.. but I think Roglic will be very happy to give you back the pink jersey (less interviews, less ceremonies, more time to rest).maria2024202410-05-2025
- Bummed for Wout. I hope he bounces back big tomorrowmij10-05-2025
- His manner of speech is that of someone who's totally laid back, not the nervous kind.
KerisVroom10-05-2025 - wow, Isaac Del Torro can TT. I am betting that he can surpass Ayuso in the future.KerisVroom10-05-2025
- van Aert will be happy if he can stay with the front group in that last climb. Pedersen will win stage 3 :-)
DareDevil10-05-2025 - Not good for Landa. Whole season gone already.DareDevil10-05-2025
- This one is for Primoz!!DareDevil10-05-2025
- Now I know Mads Pederson is a very talented hairstylist. I should have gone for this sort of hairstyle just for fun.KerisVroom10-05-2025
- Its everyman for himself at UAE if no Pogi. This was the case since last 3 yearsabstractengineer10-05-2025
Sorry but that just sounds like post-race excuse seeking. Slowing down to let them catch up? Well, yes a good idea actually but, that’s not exactly what happened and if that was the plan it was executed really badly. Firstly there was at least one moment when the gap coming down grew again, considerably. And more importantly, why if you realise the headwind is killing your chance of holding out do you slow down only a little to make it so long for them to catch you? Slow down fast, let them catch you and conserve way more energy to be available for the expected sprint. You killed your own good chances more than once this time.
The one thing in cycling that Pogacar is not good at is slowing down. At best he is a mediocre slower-downer.
That’s funny, and doubly true :-)
chapeau
Well.. sorry, I'm not sorry.. I'd rather listen to the world champion's explanation for his own show of weakness, than accept the post-mortem views of an amateur armchair pundit.. Give the guy a break.. Skjelmose's last race was Paris-Nice, where he abandoned after a crash.. Remco is just on his 2nd race of the season, fresh from having won the previous week's De Bravantse-Pijl race. Tadej battled MVDP in MSR, Flanders, P-R finishing 2nd, 1st, 2nd.. MVDP has taken an early vacation, not wishing to contest hilly races against TP in the heat of summer. If Remco and Mattias were not in this race, Tadej would have won again, to the eternal consternation of haters. Even world champions have an off-day, especially after the bone-jarring efforts of the cobbles season. Let's just appreciate these athlete's efforts to entertain us.. and hope that none of them get in harm's way.
A rather picky argument.
MVDP has been busy at top level since December, kind of normal he takes a break, especially to be back in the height of summer to work for another. What’s with challenging Tadej in the hills, does Tadej challenge him in cyclocross, or mtb??? Each to his own.
Every year when riders start racing again we’re hesitant to expect much due to lack of racing environment experience and need to build up yet for Remco now he is expected (including by Tadej) to be at his top right from the start?
Tadej, personally added to his program when many would (as usual advise him against), he has conflicting interests, wants to win things important to him but doesn’t focus on achieving that and imo, he’s kind of fallen into a trap by having underestimated how strong some others really are. He’s phenomenal but he can’t beat everyone at everything so like everyone else, at some point he will have to learn to pick more specifically because winning IS important to him. As everyone admits nobody would have expected Skjelmose to win in advance, nobody even entertained the thought Tadej might have had his dose and that someone like Skjelmose could pressure him (and if he’d ridden smarter he might still have won in a sprint).
I have no problem giving the guy a break and am not critical of the condition he’s shown but I won’t give those a break who hype him up interminably and then only discover they need to look at reasons for underperformance when they are constantly reminded by others in advance that those should always be considered before expecting results. I don’t recall any of his fans ever accepting the argument that maybe at some point he’ll overdo it, the discussion is regular, the way he rode the Giro was not conducive to achieving the double and in the end he succeeded partly because JV wasn’t up to scratch at that moment but maybe Tadej had already reckoned with that, who knows?). The fact is, he was disappointed but had only himself to blame, I mean c’mon, that wind didn’t come out of nowhere. I’m no hater, just don’t find him more appreciable than many others who make just as much effort and believe me, Tadej’s main motivation is not to entertain you, he’s no Sagan, he just likes racing, the fact that entertains people is unimportant to him other than that it pays a good salary, or was downing his drink on the podium (which the other two obviously considered a bit uncomfortably) an effort to entertain, if so, I fear it was probably entertaining, maybe even encouraging the kind of spectators that have begun to become media worthy.
Also, it seems fans and he have narrowed down strategies for winning to one, doing long-range solos. Maybe in-race he should re-evaluate whether that strategy is advantageous under actual conditions, like with a tiring headwind and two phenomenal chasers working behind him, surely he was made aware of that pretty quick?