Tadej Pogacar heads into the final week of the Tour de France with a lead of three minutes and nine seconds and at this point looks like nothing stands in the way of a third overall victory for the Slovenian.
Trying to explain his nuclear performances in stages 14 and 15, Pogacar said: “Cycling is evolving so much, I must say. Six years ago, when I came to this team, and I don’t want to speak bad about the team, it was totally different. If I compare this year to my first year at the team, it was almost amateur. Back then, I thought everything was professional, but we moved on really fast. Every team pushes each other with technology, with nutrition, with training plans, with altitude camps. Especially Visma and UAE, and Ineos and Trek and Quick-Step, we push each other to reach new limits.
“Yesterday, we witnessed the fastest-ever climbing and we should be seeing something like this every year because everybody is focusing so much on the details – every single gram of the food, every single watt you can save on the bike. We are going super fast. For me, it’s really impressive to see how things changed in the last six years of my professional career.”
“For example, six years ago, when I started, it was a lot about carbohydrates, we had white pasta, white rice and maybe omelette for breakfast,” Pogacar says. “Now we have more normal breakfast, like rice porridge, oatmeal, pancakes, bread. I think this little thing already makes a difference.
“The bikes are also so much faster, especially the tyres. The tyres make the biggest difference from what we had six years ago or 10 years ago, and the wheels, aerodynamics, frames, it’s just amazing how different the bike is now.”
Pogacar looks poised to become the first cyclist since Pantani in 1998 to win the Giro-Tour double, but the prospect of adding the Vuelta to his schedule for a tilt at the treble is excluded, but not 100% dismissed.
“This year it’s 99% impossible,” he said. “For next year, it’s a much bigger chance to see me in the Vuelta.”
