Flocked by his entourage, Tadej Pogačar walked slowly into the press room next to the open-air Roubaix Velodrome. He took a seat beside Mads Pedersen, the day’s third-place finisher, and, as he waited for the Dane to finish his conference, looked out at the faces of the journalists in front of him.
Staring back, they saw a portrait of exhaustion. The Slovenian's cheeks were dusty with mud, his complexion drained of colour, and his eyes half-shut. Simply blinking took longer than usual.
Second on his debut at Paris-Roubaix, the world champion had just endured, in his own words, “one of the hardest races I’ve ever done in my life”. He was relieved just to be sitting down.
“The cobbles, the stress on the body, it’s definitely one of the roughest, toughest, hardest races I’ve done,” the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider began, a weary canter to his voice. “I think I gained some experience that maybe next time that I come here it will not be so extremely hard as it was today.”
In reality, he had himself to blame for the intensity of the afternoon. The attacks started with over 100km to go, first spurred by Pedersen, and then intensified by Pogačar. Eager to stay safe on the feared Arenberg trench – the race’s most unforgiving sector – the Slovenian spearheaded a group through the forest, picking off the day’s breakaway riders with ease.
He then whittled away the tag-alongs. Backwards went Pedersen and Wout van Aert, leaving only the Alpecin-Deceuninck duo of Mathieu van der Poel and Jasper Philipsen.
“There was a podium set, basically. I was thinking me coming to the velodrome with two of the fastest guys in the world is not a very good idea,” he laughs. “I was trying to make something happen. Jasper was dropped, but then Mathieu was too strong.”
And yet, the decisive moment did not come from a Van der Poel attack, but rather an error from the world champion.
On an inconspicuous cobbled corner, 38km from the line, Pogačar misjudged his line, and braked to a halt in the dirt, tipping off his bike and onto the floor.
It seemed a rare lapse of judgement. Had something influenced his handling? “It’s a good thing you say this. When you go full-gas and motorbikes are in front of you, and then they don’t turn, you also don’t turn. But then suddenly they are really close to you, and you are just standing still,” he said. Nonetheless, he made clear, the responsibility landed with him. “I should know that there is a corner, so no excuses.”
A 20-second gap for Van der Poel soon unravelled to 40 seconds, and by the time Pogačar reached the velodrome, the Dutchman had already celebrated a third successive win. His rainbow jersey speckled with dust, he rode his own solo lap, and then slumped down beside his girlfriend, Urška Žigart, on the artificial grass.
“Today, not one time did I think about the Tour de France,” Pogačar said. “I was just enjoying today’s race, focusing on today. I was kind of enjoying it. You never enjoy it when you go full gas for five hours. It was really great racing.”
It was, likely, the last time fans will see the world champion lock horns with his predecessor this season, certainly in a cobbled Classic. They've shared all three of the year's Monuments so far: two for Van der Poel and one for Pogačar.
“He's a great champion and one of the best riders in the world. To race against him is a big honour. I always say, If I were a kid racing now, he would be my idol,” Pogačar said.
Is it a shame we won’t see another battle this year? “Don’t be greedy,” he grinned. He then rose carefully from his chair, and, with a team staff member holding his runner-up cobble, ambled away for a well-earned rest.
