World Champion Tadej Pogačar admitted he felt concerned at the top of the climb on the penultimate lap after launching an attack 100km from the finish in the World Championships race in September.
“I asked [the team car] how many laps is still to go if it was one or two? And I was really hoping he says just one, and that was the relief. Then I started to see a bit cross-eyed already but I knew that if I had good margin on the top of the long last climb in the last lap that I can do it. There’s still a chance they catch you, but once I hit like 10K to go I was more relaxed but still I was not sure until the last kilometre.”
Like most of the men’s peloton, the Slovenian had watched the previous races, including the men’s under-23 event where Jan Christen (Switzerland) was reeled in the finale after attacking with 51km to go.
“Everybody on the start line there was thinking just nobody wants to do Jan Christen - sorry Jan - but he did an amazing ride he was probably the strongest rider in the race but then this move just made everybody scared for the next day so everybody was hoping to wait for the last lap but the race exploded.
“It was one of the best races I have ever done so for me it was also incredible. All the season was crazy.”
In a wide-ranging interview with UAE Team Emirates sponsor MyWhoosh, Pogačar provided insight on many subjects, including the World Championships, his wet descent off Galibier, and his off-season plans.
On his successful quest to to win the Tour de France, he showcased his descending skills on stage 4 where he managed to hold off a chasing group on the highly technical Galibier descent, which was made even more challenging by the wet conditions.
“I knew that the guys in the back are also good descenders, Jonas [Vingegaard] can descend super well so I was a bit under pressure to make a bigger gap and I knew the descent so I was a bit more comfortable with it but there was some wet corners.”
“It was one of the hardest descents I [have] ever done because there are so many switchbacks as well so out of every switchback, I basically sprinted all out now so the effort after 20 minutes of descending was also quite big was not when you just descend and do the technical part here was also like a lot of sprinting.”
He knew that he needed to go all out on the descent, just like everyone else in the peloton.
“The more you’re tired, the slower you will go on the descent because maybe you don't have the same capabilities of taking the good lines, you don't see clear well if you're super tired.”
After attacking in the final kilometre of the climb, Pogačar was able to grow his gap to 35 seconds by the time he crossed the finish line 18 kilometres later in Valloire.
Pogačar has loved descending since childhood, which he believes explains his confidence and ease on challenging descents.
“I like to go up but 10 times rather go down so I think that's why I'm not worried about the descent. Of course, I'm not close to the best of descenders in the world tour but you need to be focused, you need to take good lines, you need to have an occupied mind with that so you cannot just relax and enjoy you all. I still need to think where I need to go and which line is going to be the fastest out of the corners.”
His off-season started the day after his Il Lombardia victory with team and sponsor obligations before going to his team training camp.
“Then I go to proper vacation with Urška [Žigart] after UAE camp and then one week of completely relaxing, we come back We restart to be all this stuff, ceremonies, awards, all this kind of stuff if I can fit and then December is already training camp so after the training camp there's a little bit of window where you can still go to the family, friends for Christmas, New Year and enjoy that time but you already need to be on the bike.”
