Tadej Pogacar has responded for the first time to the insinuations about his performance in the Tour de France. The young rider says that the many doping controls prove the critics wrong.
On the first day of rest of the Tour, Pogacar spoke to the international media for exactly twelve minutes during the traditional press conference of the yellow jersey wearer. Due to the corona measures, this happened again via Zoom. After some general informations about his form and the strength of his team, the final question was about how Pogacar could silence those who doubt that he is racing clean.
“I think we have many controls to prove them wrong,” Pogacar said. “I know, for example, that yesterday, I had three controls in one day – two before the stage and one after. So I think that gives enough weight to prove them wrong.”
“I’m pretty happy with how my shape is,” he said. “I did expect something like this [from] my numbers. But this Tour has been really difficult from the start with a lot of crashes and for sure it affected a lot of riders. That also cost them a lot of energy probably. I was almost untouched, I just had one crash, really small, so it didn’t affect me.”
“Really one of the biggest motivations was to show it was not a one-time thing to win the Tour just based on one time trial,” Pogacar said. “I wanted to be good again this year. All the race I’m motivated to prove myself and show the world what I can do.”
