{"id":187474,"date":"2021-11-17T07:28:36","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T07:28:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=187474"},"modified":"2021-11-16T12:45:41","modified_gmt":"2021-11-16T12:45:41","slug":"pogacar-says-he-can-be-beaten-can-he-really","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2021\/11\/17\/pogacar-says-he-can-be-beaten-can-he-really\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar Says He Can Be Beaten. Can He Really?"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a rumour going around the pro-cycling circuit that two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Poga\u010dar is Superman. Not always, of course. Only when he wants to be, as in the Tour de France. The ease with which Poga\u010dar won the last two editions of the world\u2019s most prestigious road race, winning both mountains stages and ITTs, have led some riders, such as young Danish rider Jonas Vingegaard, to suggest the 23-year-old Slovenian is unbeatable. \u201cIt looks like he has no bad days on the bike,\u201d Vingegaard told <\/a>Cycling News<\/a>. \u201cI don\u2019t see any weaknesses with him. He looks good in everything.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

The subject is of great interest to Vingegaard because next year\u2019s Tour opens in his home country, which presents a unique opportunity for the 24-year-old Jumbo-Visma rider to try to become a cycling hero to his fellow Danes by winning the race. Vingegaard shot to prominence in last year\u2019s Tour after team leader Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d<\/a> crashed out and the young Dane took over as team leader and finished second in the race, 5 mins and 20 secs behind you-know-who.<\/p>\n

\"Tour
Jonas Vinegaard, Tadej Pogacar, Mark Cavendish and Wout Poels pictured at the start of the last stage of the 108th edition of the Tour de France, Sunday 18 July 2021. \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The first problem for Vingegaard is convincing Jumbo-Visma to let him be team co-leader with Rogli\u010d. The second problem is more daunting: beating Poga\u010dar, who has said he is \u201cpretty excited<\/a>\u201d by the course of next year\u2019s Tour. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty great,\u201d he told Velo News. \u201cWe have everything: sprints, small climbs, big climbs, echelons, time trials, cobblestones. I am really looking forward to it.\u201d That sounds like a confident racer. However, informed of Vingegaard\u2019s comments, Poga\u010dar said that he was far from unbeatable.<\/p>\n

Speaking on Geraint Thomas\u2019 podcast, he said<\/a>, “[The riders] shouldn\u2019t be scared of me, for sure\u2026 because I can crack really fast. I do a good power on the not-so-long climbs but sometimes the longer climbs are worse for me, and the high altitude.\u201d Fellow riders and cycling aficionados who have seen Poga\u010dar at the Tour are likely to take this statement with a sarcastic smile and a grain of salt \u2013 though it is true that in his Tour debut, Rogli\u010d made up ground on him on the 2,400-metre-high Col de la Luz, only for Poga\u010dar to blow his fellow Slovenian and everyone else out of their saddles with an astonishing performance in the stage-20 ITT.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Tadej Poga\u010dar in yellow, Jonas Vingegaard (L) and Richard Carapaz (R). \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

This year Poga\u010dar won three mountain stages at the Tour but was briefly gapped by Vingegaard at the top of Mont Ventoux \u2013 though he ended up beating the Dane by more than 5 minutes in the GC. That is some weakness. He went on to say that he could be beaten if he were isolated and a team like Thomas\u2019 Ineos Grenadiers sent several riders at him over the course of the race. \u201cIf it happens that I have a not-so-strong team, with long-range attacks, that makes it for us more difficult,” he said.\u00a0\u201cIneos has a lot of leaders, so they can try a lot of things, in a different way. I think there can be a lot of things that can crack me or anybody else. It\u2019s not that complicated.”<\/p>\n

Right. Think back to the 2020 Tour and Poga\u010dar climbing the mountains all by himself, with not a single UAE Emirates teammate by his side \u2013 and he still won because of that final time trial. Let\u2019s face it, he is a complete rider, strong in every aspect of road racing, focused and smart \u2013 and now he has an excellent team to help him. That\u2019s one reason he won this year\u2019s Tour by such a large margin \u2013 and UAE Emirates will be even stronger next year.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Fausto Masnada, Tadej Pogacar and Adam Yates on the podium (Il Lombardia). \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I suspect that Poga\u010dar was playing a cat-and-mouse game in telling Geraint Thomas and other rivals how to beat him. I don\u2019t think he believes it himself. I think that he doesn\u2019t believe anyone can beat him in the Tour de France, not in the foreseeable future anyway, and not without some chance misfortune ruining his chances.<\/p>\n

And I think he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s a rumour going around the pro-cycling circuit that two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Poga\u010dar is Superman. Not always, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":179569,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[1080,5450,1221,3415,433],"global-categories":[],"class_list":["post-187474","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-geraint-thomas","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-primoz-roglic","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france"],"yoast_head":"\nPoga\u010dar Says He Can Be Beaten. Can He Really? - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"There\u2019s a rumour going around the pro-cycling circuit that two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Poga\u010dar is Superman. Not always, of course. 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