Tadej Pogačar has named the Tour de France and World Championships, and so a repeat of his 2024 success, as his major goals for 2025, with the Giro d'Italia or Vuelta a España also a potential target as he looks to continue his dominance.
The new season will see Pogačar return to Milan-San Remo and the cobbled Classics of Flanders but he ruled out the idea of all three Grand Tours next season, at least for 2025.
Speaking at the UAE Team Emirates training camp in Benidorm, Spain, Pogačar also talked at length about rider safety, arguing that it "was mostly on the riders to make things safe." He dismissed the idea that race and rider speeds needed to be somehow reduced.
Pogačar recognised that 2024 was his best season to date. Consistency, born out of an untroubled year of racing, training and recovery was his single biggest reason for his ongoing improvements and success.
The reigning World champion said that he hoped to continue progressing to the end of his career.
"As humans we improve until the very end and in sport it’s the same: when you cannot improve so much, maybe it's time to finish your career," he suggested.
At 26 Pogačar's career is a long way from being finished and he argued that the top priority for him in 2025 would be to defend two of his biggest successes in 2024, the Tour de France in July and then the World Championships in Rwanda.
"My program isn't anything crazy," he suggested.
"I start like in past years with the UAE Tour, probably then some Italian and Belgian Classics, the Ardennes, then preparation for the Tour. The Tour is the main goal alongside the World Championships: it will give me great pleasure if I can defend the titles."
While he tantalizingly left the door open for Paris-Roubaix in 2025, it does not look likely.
"It's not a final decision [to skip it] and maybe I can still do it, but I don’t think it suits me the very best and there is still time to go to do it another year," Pogačar said.
"I really like to do the Classics. In 2023 I had a really great Classics season until I crashed. I want to go back to the cobbles at least a few more times in my career. It doesn’t matter if I have the World Champion's [rainbow] stripes or not, I like to do them."
Pogačar seems particularly determined to target Milan-San Remo, one of the two Monuments, together with Paris-Roubaix, that is missing from his palmares.
"It's the least predictable race on the calendar, but it's the one where I really want to improve myself again and again," he said.
"I'm coming closer to the first place, and next year it'll be one of the goals. In San Remo, the most important is not to have an aero’ bike, you need comfort more for such a long distance, and also a bike which goes really fast on 5-7 % gradients and that's good in corners, because a lot of time you need to take risks."
"But I really like the race, it's a really nice Monument, the way it's all so concentrated in the last climbs, so I’m looking forward to it."
One of the biggest questions yet to be decided for Pogačar is whether he goes for a repeat of the 2024 Giro-Tour or moves to a Giro-Vuelta combination in 2025.
Either way, he said, one important conclusion from 2024 was that he'd found doing two Grand Tours to be a good thing.
"If you have a plan and train well, you can do everything," he said by way of an explanation of how he had managed to pull off one of the most extraordinary feats in recent cycling by winning the Giro and Tour in 2024.
Safety is an concern but wore results than 2024 are not
Safety is an issue that has been increasingly debated in professional cycling and Pogačar argued that rather than making the bikes and races slower, it was up to the riders to protect each other by "not doing stupid things and respecting all riders and respecting the road."
"I don’t think there were no crashes 100 years ago or no risks if we go at a 20kmh average speed," he said with sarcasm.
"Think about your own abilities," he made clear.
As for making racing safer, he said, "It's a tough one. But organisers are trying now with new barriers, they are getting really good at choosing the right roads and not going over speed bumps at 70kmh. We've got more sensible finishes. I'm not an expert at straight-line finishes, but there shouldn't even be gentle corners in the last 400, 500 metres.
"The Extreme Weather Protocol is getting used more and more, especially with snow and rain, in the bigger races, less in the smaller ones. I think it's even more dangerous to ride in 45 degrees going full gas than maybe in five degrees, because a heat stroke can be really dangerous."
When it comes to his 2025 goals, Pogačar argued that even if "I was a little bit worse than this year I'll still be OK," he argued.
Yet Pogačar wants to continue to raise the bar next year - and indeed all the way to the end of his career.
He may consider using a mental health coach could be something he might look at, while having a contract with UAE Team Emirates until 2030 is also reassuring.
"I can focus more on my cycling with a long-term contract," he said.
"I don't have to worry about if a new contract is coming and for sure that is an advantage. You're more comfortable that way and I know everybody very well here and have great friendships here. So it's good to be here for a long time."
