"We are going to have inside information" - Patrick Lefevere claims to have secret advantage in quest to take on Tadej Pogacar

There's no doubting who the current top dog of the peloton is in 2024. After an all-time great season this year, UAE Team Emirates leader Tadej Pogacar claimed 2 Grand Tours, 2 monuments, a Rainbow Jersey and much more. The question now is, how do you stop the all-conquering Slovenian?

One of those perhaps best positioned to take on Pogacar and UAE Team Emirates is Soudal - Quick-Step leader Remco Evenepoel, how himself in 2024 took a Rainbow Jersey, double Olympic gold and finished on the podium of the Tour de France among other notable results. According to Soudal - Quick-Step's team boss Patrick Lefevere, the Belgian's may also have a secret advantage in their bid to take the fight to Pogacar in 2025.

"We are going to have inside information, right?" Lefevere begins in conversation with Het Nieuwsblad. "You know that his (Tadej Pogacar's ed.) girlfriend Urska Zigart will be riding with us next year at AG Insurance-Soudal. We are going to put her through her paces," the Belgian team boss jokes. “That is already a smart transfer then," laughs Belgian legend and former star rider of Lefevere, Tom Boonen. 

Regardless of whether or not Lefevere is truly going to attempt to drag some inside information out of Zigart, Boonen is confident that Evenepoel can still go up a level and become the rider to potentially match Pogacar in 2025. “I think he has already taken a huge step this year. In the Tour de France he has shown a maturity that I had not seen from him before," the Classics icon concludes. “Three weeks of constant level, mature uphill, at his own pace. Not letting those two who tried to tempt him out of his tent drive him crazy. It's not all about the purely physical, but that's also very important.”