Escape Collective stands against this insidious misinformation.
We live in an age where fact and fiction increasingly bleed into one another. Reality is filtered, bent, and reshaped – by institutions, by media, by political agendas. Add the accelerating influence of AI and large language models, and the concept of truth itself begins to feel rubbery, rather than absolute.
Cycling isn’t immune to this. It’s been creeping in around the margins, but at Escape Collective Towers, we recently came across a document that stretches credibility well past breaking point. We could have let it pass. But when misinformation explicitly targets the biggest name in the sport – Tadej Pogačar – we feel it deserves to be called out.
The book in question, titled simply Pog, details the titular main character’s struggles to overcome his doubts and fears, with a childlike offsider called Tom serving as a dramatic foil. If that sounds eerily familiar to you from the weekend’s exploits at Milan-San Remo, you’re not alone. But how much stock should we put in the various plot points and descriptions of the fictionalised Pog? How do they sit alongside the very real existence of the Slovenian bicyclist called Tadej Pogačar? Which is the canonical version of Pog – the children’s book from 2001, or the man from 1998?
As capital-J Journalists, there is only one ethical approach to take: combatting misinformation with truth, preventing the insidious narrative presented by Pog from taking hold. Let’s proceed through this book, methodically fact-checking its spurious claims.
Here’s the front cover of this Little Pamphlet of Lies (LPoL). The hair of ‘Pog’ is appropriately spiky to have echoes in Tadej Pogačar, the Slovenian cyclist, who also sometimes wears yellow with black (especially during the month of July). Coincidence? We think not. Also, he has a toothbrush tucked into his waistband and a stern expression.
Is this believable?
Barely. This is a greeny-blue monster rather than a human man. Tadej Pogačar also does not have a tail. He does appear to have good dental hygiene, however.
Opening the cover, we, the readers of this LPoL, meet Pog’s family. On this page are his parents. There is also a baby sister called Bedlam, a Nanna called Nanna (how convenient!), and a big brother called Vandal.
Our assessment?
False. Tadej Pogačar does not live with his parents, but rather in Monaco with his partner Urška Žigart. His mum may indeed be busy (although she is a French teacher, rather than a dung beetle) and I don’t know much about his dad, other than that he looks similar to his son and sometimes wears denim shorts in a very Euro-Dad fashion. Pogačar, like Pog, has a younger sister and an older brother, but they are humans rather than monsters.
We now learn more about Pog, including that he is very brave, most of the time.
Verdict?
Mixed. Tadej Pogačar, like Pog, exists with reckless abandon. We do not know what nocturnal angst stirs Tadej Pogačar, however, and a bathtub full of sharks sounds logistically complicated, unless it was a very big bath or they were very small and cooperative sharks. As for their bravery or otherwise, sharks are more aptly described as bold, confident and curious apex predators, which frankly seems on-brand for Tadej Pogačar.
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