2023-07-25 08:16:00
“Something happened there, but I don’t know what exactly yet,” explained the clueless Tour winner of 2020 and 2021 to the French sports daily “L’Equipe”.
The brutal burglary of the 24-year-old sparked discussions and speculation regarding his health.
The drop in performance is not related to the crash at the Liège-Bastogne-Liège race, where the UAE team driver sustained a hand injury in April. “It has nothing to do with my wrist injury, it’s something else,” said Pogacar, who had already noticed during the time trial that he “didn’t have good legs”. “It was pretty devastating,” he said, describing a physical sensation.
The Slovenian admitted he might not even have made it to the finish on the ultimately crucial stage 17 without teammate and helper Marc Soler. “It didn’t work anymore. The end of the stage was just pure suffering,” he admitted.
Pogacar: ‘The Tour was just a bonus’
Allan Peiper, the Radstar’s former mentor, also commented on Pogacar’s physical collapse: “Tadej looked a bit ill, I don’t know, there was something, it wasn’t the Tadej we know.”
Pogacar was nevertheless satisfied with his performance in the world’s most famous cycle race, in which the Dane Vingegaard (Jumbo – Visma) was the “deserved winner”. “After winning Paris-Nice and the Tour of Flanders, the year was already successful for me. The tour was just a bonus,” said Pogacar, who felt less pressure following his wrist injury: “I felt like I had nothing to lose.”
Regarding the coming years, the Slovenian sent a signal towards the competition: “If everything goes according to plan, I will come back even stronger.”
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