Tadej Pogačar
Tadej Pogačar, nicknamed "Pogi", is a Slovenian professional cyclist who currently rides for UCI WorldTeam.
His victories include four Tours de France, the 2024 Giro d'Italia, and ten one-day Monuments, as well as the World Championship Road Race twice. Comfortable in time-trialing, one-day classic riding and grand-tour climbing, he has been compared to all-round cyclists such as Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault. He is considered one of the greatest cyclists of all time.
In 2024 he became only the third male cyclist, after Eddy Merckx in 1974 and Stephen Roche in 1987, to achieve the Triple Crown of Cycling, winning the Giro, the Tour, and the World Championships in the same year. He is the only rider in history who took the Triple Crown and two monuments in the same year. In 2025, he became the first male cyclist to win both the Tour de France and the UCI Road World Championship Road Race in two successive years.
Born in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, Pogačar was a successful junior rider, winning the 2018 Tour de l'Avenir. Aged 20 in 2019, he became the youngest cyclist to win a UCI World Tour race at the Tour of California, and won three stages of the Vuelta a España en route to an overall third-place finish and the young rider title. In both his 2020 debut at the Tour de France and the following year, he won three stages and the race overall, as well as the mountains and young-rider classifications, becoming the only rider to win these three classifications simultaneously. 2021 also saw Pogačar's first successes in the major Monument one-day races, at the Giro di Lombardia and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. Subsequent seasons saw further wins in these, with the Tour of Flanders also added to his palmarès in 2023. Meanwhile, in the Grand Tours, Pogačar had consecutive 2nd-place finishes in the Tour de France to Jonas Vingegaard, with whom his rivalry is considered to be one of the greatest of all time. This run ended in 2024 when he completed the first Giro d'Italia and Tour de France double since 1998, winning 12 stages across both races.
Pogačar has been praised for his attacking riding style, an approach which Pogačar himself has jokingly referred to as a "stupid instinct" during a time when many others have ridden more conservatively to manage energy levels. His aim to be competitive across both the Monuments and Grand Tours has been labelled as a return to "classic" bike racing of the 1960s–1980s, and this success across multiple fronts has led to him being the UCI road racing world No.1 for a record total number of weeks and record number of consecutive weeks.
Career
Early career
Pogačar followed his older brother Tilen in joining the Rog Ljubljana club at the age of nine. In 2011 he came to the attention of Road World Championship medalist Andrej Hauptman, who later became his coach, and head coach & selector for the Slovenian national cycling team. Hauptman watched Pogačar pursuing a group of much older teenagers from 100 meters behind. Thinking that Pogačar was struggling to keep up with the older riders, he told the race organisers that they should provide some assistance to Pogačar: the organisers explained that the younger rider was in fact about to lap the group he was chasing. Hauptman subsequently managed Pogačar as an under-23 rider with the team, before joining UAE Team Emirates as a directeur sportif in May 2019, after Pogačar joined the team.In 2018, Pogačar won the Tour de l'Avenir, riding for the Slovenian national team.
UAE Team Emirates (2019–present)
2019 – UCI WorldTour win and Grand Tour debut
In August 2018, announced they had signed Pogačar for the 2019 season, describing him as a "very talented young Slovenian cyclist". In 2019, Pogačar made his debut for the team at the Tour Down Under, where he finished 13th overall. He went on to win the Volta ao Algarve, taking the race lead after winning the second stage. He also placed sixth at the Tour of the Basque Country. In May 2019, he won the Tour of California, becoming the youngest rider to win a UCI WorldTour stage race. He took the race lead after winning the queen stage to Mount Baldy on stage 6. In June, Pogačar won the Slovenian national time trial championship after beating Matej Mohorič by 29 seconds.In August, Pogačar was named in the team's start list for the Vuelta a España, his debut in a Grand Tour. In the first week, he performed strongly, placing himself in the top ten on GC before winning his first Grand Tour stage on the rain-soaked stage to Cortals d'Encamp. The win allowed him to move inside the top five on GC. On stage 13, which finished on the steep climb of Los Machucos, he was the only rider to stay with the race leader and his compatriot, Primož Roglič. Pogačar ended up winning his second stage to move up to third overall, where he stayed heading into the second rest day. After losing time on stage 18, he dropped down to fifth on GC. On the penultimate stage, with one last chance to move up the standings, Pogačar launched an attack, going on an almost solo breakaway. He eventually took his third stage win, winning by more than a minute and a half over the rest of the contenders. The win allowed him to finish the Vuelta in third overall, the final podium position, and giving him the victory in the young rider classification.
2020 – first Tour win
Before the season started, Pogačar announced that he was making his debut at the Tour de France, where he planned on riding in support of Fabio Aru. He made his season debut at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana, where he won two stages on his way to winning the race. At the curtailed UAE Tour, he won the fifth stage, which finished atop the Jebel Hafeet, and finishing second to Adam Yates on GC. In March, cycling events were among those postponed by the COVID-19 pandemic. When the season resumed, he took fourth overall in the Critérium du Dauphiné. In the Slovenian national championships, he finished second to Primož Roglič in the road race before defeating him in the time trial, defending his title.In the Tour de France, Pogačar quickly demonstrated that he was in better form than Aru, his team's initial leader, after finishing second to Roglič on stage four, which finished atop the climb of Orcières-Merlette. He lost almost a minute and a half on stage 7, which was affected by crosswinds. The next day, he began to claw back time when he attacked on the Col de Peyresourde, gaining back 38 seconds over the rest of the contenders. After Aru withdrew on stage 9, Pogačar won the stage to Laruns, his first Tour stage win, by outsprinting Egan Bernal and Roglič, who took the maillot jaune, as well as Marc Hirschi, who had been on an solo breakaway. On stage 13, which finished atop the steep climb of Puy Mary, he was the only rider to stay with Roglič and moving up to second overall at 44 seconds down. He also took the lead in the young rider classification in the process. Two days later, he outsprinted Roglič at the top of the Col du Grand Colombier to take his second stage of the race.
At the beginning of the third week, Pogačar sat in second overall at 40 seconds behind Roglič. On stage 17, the queen stage, which finished atop the Col de la Loze, he struggled to follow Roglič, eventually losing 17 seconds. Ahead of the penultimate stage, a time trial finishing at La Planche des Belles Filles, Pogačar faced a 57-second deficit to Roglič. He began to claw back time from his compatriot, and he headed into the final climb with a lead of 36 seconds in the stage and a deficit of 21 seconds on the virtual GC. Pogačar gained time on the climb before going into the virtual maillot jaune with left. He took the stage victory, his third of the race, almost a minute and a half ahead of Tom Dumoulin while Roglič finished almost two minutes down. The result meant he took the maillot jaune with a lead of 59 seconds on Roglič and the lead in the mountain classification. The next day, he finished safely in the peloton to officially win the Tour, becoming the first Slovenian winner of the race. At the age of 21, he also became the second youngest winner of the Tour, just behind Henri Cornet, who won the Tour in 1904 at the age of 19. In addition to winning the Tour, he also won the young rider classification as well as the mountains classification. The previous rider to win three jerseys was Eddy Merckx in 1972. He became the twelfth rider to win the Tour de France on his first attempt, and the first since 1983.
After the Tour, Pogačar competed in the men's road race at the World Championships, where he supported Roglič, who finished in sixth place. Three days later, he competed at La Flèche Wallonne where he finished in ninth place. He ended his season at Liège–Bastogne–Liège, where he originally finished in fourth place before moving up to third following Julian Alaphilippe's relegation.
2021 – second Tour win and Monument success
Pogačar started the 2021 season by winning the UAE Tour, Tirreno–Adriatico, Liège–Bastogne–Liège – his first win in a monument and the Tour of Slovenia.Pogačar began the 2021 Tour de France as one of the pre-race favorites along with Primož Roglič, Geraint Thomas and Richard Carapaz. On stage one he finished with the group of favorites eight seconds behind stage winner Julian Alaphilippe and took the lead in the white jersey classification. Pogačar won the fifth stage, the race's first time trial, finishing 18 seconds ahead of Stefan Küng and taking significant time out of his GC rivals. On stage eight he launched an attack, from more than six minutes behind the breakaway, taking over the yellow jersey with a lead of over four and a half minutes on those considered to be contenders for the overall victory. Pogačar extended his GC lead on the ninth stage to Tignes, responding to an attack by Carapaz on the final climb from the finish and dropping his rivals in the main group, emerging with an overall lead of over two minutes over second placed Ben O'Connor, who had moved up the order after winning the stage from the breakaway.
Following stage eleven, which included a double ascent of Mont Ventoux, the closest rivals to Pogačar included Rigoberto Urán, Jonas Vingegaard and Carapaz, but all them remained more than five minutes behind. Pogačar had temporarily lost some time to Vingegaard on the final ascent of Ventoux before catching him on the descent to the finish alongside Carapaz and Uran. Pogačar extended his lead further with wins on stages 17 and 18, by which point he had a lead of 5' 45" over Vingegaard and an unassailable lead in the polka dot jersey classification. On the penultimate 20th stage, a time trial between Libourne and Saint-Émilion, Pogačar conceded half a minute to Vingegaard but retained a lead of over five minutes going into the final stage to Champs-Élysées in Paris.
Pogačar's win made him the youngest cyclist to win consecutive Tours. This was also the second year in a row that he won three distinctive jerseys. Both during and at the end of the Tour there were accusations of doping on social media and in the press due to the dominance Pogačar displayed. When asked about it he answered, "For sure I am not angry about it. They are uncomfortable questions because the history was really bad. I totally understand why there are all of these questions."
Jonathan Vaughters, the directeur sportif of one of the teams who had a GC rider competing against Pogačar, Team, offered an explanation for how Pogačar was able to be so successful on stage eight. He explained that the twin factors of uncharacteristic weather conditions and chaotic, uncontrolled racing dynamics played a part. In addition to this in previous years there was usually a dominant team who would contain the attacks of any riders considered a threat for victory, whether it was Team Ineos, Team Jumbo-Visma or Movistar Team. During the 2021 Tour teams Ineos and Jumbo had both suffered from the first week crashes and Movistar was not as strong as they had been in years past. As such by the time Pogačar launched his attack late in the stage, there were no teams remaining who were strong enough to keep him in check. Vaughters also stated, "Simply put, the race was so aggressive all day long, along with really the race as a whole on the flats, that basically by the time the peloton was taking in the climbs, they were cooked. This was further exacerbated by the wet conditions."
After the Tour de France, Pogačar won the bronze medal in the men's road race at the Olympic Games after finishing behind Wout van Aert in the sprint for the silver medal. At the end of July, UAE Team Emirates announced that they had agreed a one-year extension to his contract, committing him to the team up to the end of 2027. Pogačar took a break from racing following the Olympics, returning to competition at the Bretagne Classic Ouest–France at the end of August, where he initially managed to follow an attack by Alaphilippe on a gravelled climb 60 km from the finish along with Mikkel Frølich Honoré and Benoît Cosnefroy, but was dropped by the other escapees who went on to take the podium places.
In September he competed at the European Road Championships in Trentino: in the road race, after a number of breakaways had emerged and been caught by the peloton, he followed an attack by Matteo Trentin to form part of a lead group which expanded to include ten riders. He did not keep pace with a further attack from this group 23 km from the end of the race, with a three-man selection of Remco Evenepoel, Sonny Colbrelli and Cosnefroy dropping their rivals and securing the medals. At the Road World Championships in Flanders later that month, Pogačar finished 37th in the road race. He then moved on to Italy in October to compete in the autumn classics held there: although he failed to finish the Giro dell'Emilia, he made an impression at Tre Valli Varesine, animating the race with a long-race attack from 120 km: although he lost contact with the head of the race due to a puncture he won the sprint in the chase group to finish third. At Milano–Torino, Pogačar managed to keep pace with the other favourites for most of the day, emerging from the peloton's fragmentation in crosswinds 65 km from the end as part of a front group which absorbed the day's early breakaway, and remaining in contention for the win until losing contact with Adam Yates and Roglič in the closing kilometres of the final climb up Superga: he subsequently lost the two-up sprint for third place to João Almeida.
A few days later, Pogačar won his second monument at Il Lombardia, responding to an attack by Vincenzo Nibali by dropping the Italian and the rest of the lead group 30 km from the finish: although he was subsequently joined at the front of the race by Fausto Masnada, Pogačar won the resulting two-man sprint at the finish line. He became the third rider after Fausto Coppi and Eddy Merckx to win two monuments and the Tour in the same year and just fourth rider to win the Tour de France and the Tour of Lombardy in the same season, after Coppi, Merckx and Bernard Hinault, and the first to do so in 42 years.