Tadej Pogacar is a contradiction with legs. Like everyone else, of course. He combines a very distinctive navel, an indifferent disdain and a naive smile, all at the same time, on his face still as a child at the age of 25, with a relaxed attitude towards the ups and downs of life or the big decisions that will shape his career. . Attitudes that go badly together. It is not the unbridled ego that is required of a great champion accustomed to the world revolving around him. He is more Anquetil than Merckx. One day he stammers and runs away from a clear answer and the next day he lets loose his tongue without breaking a sweat, with irony that someone can interpret as sarcasm, while showing total indifference to what the world thinks or to the inner life within him. equipment. Carefree search for inconsequentiality. A very rare thing.
He is not very happy when they tell him that Juan Ayuso, the Spanish figure of his UAE, wants to do the Tour and that he believes that it is good for his team that there is not only one leader, just in case. “Yes, yes, Juan is growing as a cyclist and as a person, too. His level is super,” says Pogacar. “But it will be the team management that decides for him what he is going to do. “Everyone makes wishes, but they don’t come true so easily.” And without hardly changing his tone, he goes from harshness in judgment to tenderness when asked about Mathieu van der Poel, the grandson of Poulidor, the world champion, the best classicomaniac of the moment, whom he defeated in what he considers his best race of the year, best victory of 2023, the Tour of Flanders “He is a very nice kid. I consider myself his friend and his rival, but not so much a direct rival, as Wout van Aert is for him, but only in a few races a year,” says Pogacar, so kind. “He is one of the best cyclists in the world. He is world champion. He would be my idol if I were a child now. A goal for 2024? Have a good time and take the rainbow jersey from Van der Poel…”
And he also laughs when he comments on Nairo Quintana’s return to the WorldTour after a year serving an unjust sentence. “My first victory in the WorldTour, a stage in Andorra with hail and cold in the 2019 Vuelta, I fought with Nairo, but I always remember it because it was when Movistar stopped Marc Soler, my teammate now, when he was going I escaped. And every time I see Marc I tell him, ‘I won that stage thanks to you’, hehe.”
It will be its character, it will be, or it will be the climate of Singapore and its landscape, perhaps, or the light atmosphere that surrounds the festive criterium.
The world, despite all this, takes it for granted that the Slovenian will debut in 2024 in the Giro d’Italia, which ends on May 26, 34 days before the start of the Tour in Florence (June 29), five weeks that could be enough to recover from a victory and try another and become the first to win Giro-Tour in the same year since Marco Pantani did it 25 years ago. “My heart tells me to do everything, but it can’t be. “We’ll see” answers the question, which is not a yes but not a no either, and which in Milan, in the mother house of the Giro, they interpret as a “probably yes”, well, not in vain, they assure in a low voice, the Economic negotiations between RCS, the organizer of the Gazzetta race, and the UAE, its team, are more than advanced, and no less in vain, the Giro has made an effort to moderate its route by 2024, increasing it to 70 the kilometers against the clock and clearing of terrifying stages to attract without scaring the champions who will later go to the Tour.
The next day, he speaks more clearly. With a luminous lucidity of the role of the athlete in society, in the organization of the business, he washes his hands. He will do what the bosses say. He will submit his ambitions to the needs of the team. “I go with the flow. If I made my calendar I would sign up for all the races, and I wouldn’t win as much. I like to compete. I love the Tour. I would like to do the Twist and Turn. Running the big three is something special, running this one time, that one time… it’s the best, I think. I have wishes that I want to come true,” he says. “But it is the team that makes the final decision. Must be like this. The bosses. The equipment is yours. They are also the ones who have the head to make a good program, not me. We are just runners. We are here to pedal, to win races. Sports directors need to make a plan for 30 runners. “If I did it, I would only think about myself, and forget about others.”
Although in 2023 he won the Clásica de los Olivos in Jaén and the Strade Bianche, two classics with gravel in between, he is not very happy that the Tour has put a stage like this, the ninth. “We are going to have to make a defensive race, it is not like a one-day test, we have to think about the next day. We can’t attack,” he says. “And no, I don’t think I will return to Jaén…”
You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on Facebook and Xor sign up here to receive our weekly newsletter.
2023-10-30 09:52:20
#Play #Giro #flow #Cycling #Sports
