When you consider what he has achieved so far and how much influence he has on the world of cycling, and that he is only 27 years old, it is scary to think what Tadej Pogačar's biography will look like when he is nearing the end of his career.
There is a saying in the world sporta, which is usually used to emphasize someone's skill, and which says that someone is a true master only when he convinces the audience that they can perform his moves themselves.
In cycling, on the other hand, nothing seems nice, easy and simple at first glance. Who sat at least once on bike, sympathizes with the athletes who turn the pedals for hours, covering several hundred kilometers a day, over hills and valleys, day after day.
Only the more knowledgeable of the sport notice subtle differences in the pedaling techniques or tactical skills of certain cyclists. How then to determine who is the best, how to judge who is a real master? As in any other discipline, we can turn to the results, although this criterion is quite tricky when it comes to cycling, because there are different types of races, and no one is built and trained to be suitable for every type of race.
At least that's what was thought until, sometime before the start of the pandemic, a miraculous child from Slovenia named Tadej Pogačar appeared.
This young man has won more or less everything there is to win in the following years, but perhaps the best description of his mastery came last weekend, when he finished third in the Milan-San Remo Classic.
When asked why Pogačar still hasn't won this race, one of the few that he misses, one analyst suggested that "the race is simply too easy for him to win"?!
How did it all begin?
At the tender age of 21, in a sport where everyone under the age of 25 is considered practically a child, Tadej Pogačar made his debut at the Grand Tour – one of the three most important, three-week races in the cycling calendar, the equivalent of the Grand Slam in tennis – winning as many as three stages and finishing the Spanish Vuelta in third place.
A few months before that, he won the one-week race of California, making him the youngest winner of a UCI world race in history. It was already clear then that he had a great career ahead of him, and Pogačar was only the last in a line of Slovenians who successfully competed in the world of professional cycling.
Slightly older Luka Mezgec paved the way for the younger generation with fantastic sprinting skills, Matej Mohoric represented an exciting and attractive driver who enjoys solo attacks, while Primož Roglič brought the first Grand Tour trophy to the former Yugoslav republic.
Roglič had an extremely interesting past, considering that he was engaged in professional ski jumping until the age of 24, when he got hold of a bicycle. Already after five years in the professional peloton, he managed to win the Vuelta, the same year in 2019 when Pogačar finished on the podium.
It was clear that the Slovenians did not have to worry about the future in this sport, and real euphoria gripped the inhabitants of this country the following summer. In 2020, the most prestigious cycling race in the world, the mythical Tour de France, brought a battle between two of their favourites, Roglic and Pogacar. Before the penultimate stage, which was known to be decisive, the 31-year-old Roglič had a 57-second lead over the 22-year-old Pogačar.
The whole of Slovenia breathlessly followed the struggle of their athletes on the world's biggest stage, in a type of stage called a time trial, in which the drivers ride independently a certain number of kilometers - in this case, 36 kilometers and 200 meters.
Due to his unusual career path, but also the fact that this is one of his best chances to win the Tour de France, most of Slovenia leaned towards Roglič, but the young Pogačar had other plans. With a fantastic and dominant drive, he completely shattered the hopes of his older colleague and took the yellow jersey (which is worn by the race leader) with almost two minutes of advantage, and then drove it through the streets of Paris in the last stage.
Tadej Pogačar thus became the first Slovenian to win the Tour de France, and the second youngest winner in history, after 19-year-old Henri Cornet, who won the race back in 1904. In addition, he also won the white and polka dot jersey classifications, which are reserved for the best young and mountain rider.
A Star Is Born
After that, practically no one could stop him. His team, the UAE Team Emirates, became aware of what a treasure they had at their disposal, so in the following years they raised their budgets and brought in better and better supporting drivers. Everything was subordinated to the young Slovenian, and he was very good at justifying the trust.
In the next four years, he won two more Tour de France, one Giro d'Italia, the world championship; then numerous classics - one-day races of enormous importance, run throughout Belgium and Italy - such as Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Amstel Golden Race, Walloon Arrow, Lombardy, Strada Bianca; but also very popular one-week races: Paris-Nice, Catalonia, Tyrrhenian-Adriatic, Andalucia, Algarve...
In the past year 2024, he became only the third cyclist in history, after the legendary Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roach, who won the triple crown - Giro, Tour and World Championship in the same year.
He probably would have won gold at the Paris Olympics, had he not backed out at the last minute, angry at the Slovenian Olympic Committee's decision not to bring his girlfriend, Urška Zigart, to compete in the women's Olympic race.
He ended the season by winning the Lombardy race for the fourth time in a row, one of the five "monumental" classics, thus reaching the 75-year-old record of the immortal Fausto Coppi.
A race that is too easy for him.
The spectrum of races that Pogačar won is spectacular - from one-day classics, through one-week races, and ending with grand tours, which are three weeks long and require a completely different kind of preparation, form and performance.
Usually cyclists specialize in one of these categories. There have been great drivers who have won a huge number of classics, but they have not had excessive success in three-week races, during which it is necessary to cross the mountain peaks of the Alps and strictly take care of every morsel that is taken into the body.
Likewise, there is a large number of those who "crossed" the Alps and won the most prestigious cycling races, but did not manage to win in one-day skirmishes, in which a slightly higher number of kilograms is needed, which would create greater strength in sprinting confrontations.
Tadej Pogačar showed that it is possible for someone to be dominant in any type of race, and a driver of that caliber has been waiting since Eddie Merckx, who in the late '60s and early '70s of the last century terrorized opponents wherever he appeared.
However, in the condensed and colorful cycling calendar, there is one race that Pogačar has yet to win. It is the Milan-San Remo classic, a full 289 kilometers long, the route of which starts in the small town of Pavia near Milan, descends to the south, all the way to the vicinity of Genoa, after which it turns west towards Savona and San Remo.
The landscape through which the cyclists pass is beautiful to look at, but not so difficult and interesting to race. There are almost no challenges for the drivers for the full 270 kilometers, until the Ćiprese hill, which has been part of the route of this race since 1982, and it was on this hill that the attack of Pogacar was expected at this year's edition.
We knew that this would be the case, among other things, because he himself, the day before the race, declared that he would attack the competition right there. In any other case, such an announcement could be considered overbearing, in a sport where tactics are kept as a strictly classified secret, but now the entire cycling world simply knew that this hill was Pogačar's only chance.
Why? Because he could only attack there and try to leave the competition behind, because nothing before and after Ćipresa is demanding and difficult enough to make the so-called. selection. What everyone expected happened, but the two drivers managed to stay on his wheel. In question were Mathew van der Pool, a Dutch specialist for one-day classics, and Filippo Gana, a local trump card who is one of the best timekeepers in the caravan.
Pogačar tried to get rid of these two, made attack after attack, but Van der Pol followed all that without any problems. Gana struggled, but also managed to get back to the leading duo, after their tactics and conserving strength for the final sprint began.
It was known before the sprint that Van der Pool, the grandson of the legendary French cyclist Raymond Poulidor, is the best of the three in this type of finish. He started his sprint even 300 meters from the finish line and managed to cross the finish line with his arms raised.
Pogačar once again came up short at Milan-San Remo, and again for only one reason – this race is simply not difficult enough. While he won numerous other one-day classics by attacking on the first demanding section, and then pedaling a huge number of kilometers in front of numerous followers, here he simply had nowhere to leave behind a fantastic driver of the caliber of van der Pool.
The best is yet to come.
When you consider what he has achieved so far and how much of an impact he has on the world of cycling, and that he is only 27 years old, it is scary to think what his resume will look like when he is nearing the end of his career. Cyclists' careers on average last longer than other athletes, so it is to be expected that the Slovenian "child prodigy" will harass opponents on European and world roads for a long time to come.
During that time, the competitors will wait to find out which upcoming races Pogačar has decided to drive for, and make plans accordingly. Why would they reduce their own chances of winning, if there is the little one who wants to win every race?
Thaddeus has announced new attacks on the Giro and the Tour, but even before that he has some unfinished business. The season of classics in Belgium and France has practically just started, so fans of cycling will have the opportunity to enjoy one of the most dominant phenomena in today's world of sports.
And it is up to the opponents to adapt, learn and become better through the competition. As, after all, the fantastic Mathieu van der Pool showed the whole cycling world last weekend.
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