{"id":291985,"date":"2025-11-18T06:16:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T06:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291985\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T06:16:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T06:16:09","slug":"win-races-have-fun-no-problems-inside-the-early-days-of-tadej-pogacars-unstoppable-career","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/291985\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Win races, have fun, no problems’ \u2013 Inside the early days of Tadej Poga\u010dar’s unstoppable career"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an extract from the new book Tadej Poga\u010dar: Unstoppable by Andy McGrath (Bloomsbury Sport). Available to buy now.<\/a><\/p>\n

In Chapter 5: Breakaway, McGrath revisits the important early years of Poga\u010dar’s career, here the summer of 2018, which concluded with him winning the Tour de l’Avenir<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ushering in a summer he would never forget, Poga\u010dar<\/a> took his first win of 2018 in spectacular fashion at June\u2019s under-23 Peace Race. Part of the Nations Cup, the foremost UCI season-long series for that age group, he won with an audacious, last-day attack over two climbs and 35 km, through the pouring rain into the Czech town of Jesenik, jumping from sixth to first on GC in the process. The rival Swiss and Great Britain teams chased hard, but made few inroads into his advantage. Even a couple of years later, after winning his first Tour de France<\/a>, Poga\u010dar talked about that day as his best memory of racing on the offensive.<\/p>\n

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The subsequent Tour of Slovenia<\/a> was a big success for Poga\u010dar and his team. Ben Hill took enough intermediate bonus seconds from breakaways on the opening two stages to slip into the green jersey of race leader.<\/p>\n

‘I\u2019m leading the tour and there are fellas still not giving me the wheel,’ Hill says of the lack of respect afforded to him. ‘Whereas Poga\u010dar didn\u2019t care, he was sat back in 50th by himself, moving up when he needs to move up. As soon as it started going uphill, he just rode around everyone.’ Poga\u010dar finished fourth, helped by a strong time trial, though Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d<\/a> was the comfortable race winner.<\/p>\n

The young team captain\u2019s happy-go-lucky side also shone through. ‘I was tucked up in bed one night and Poga\u010dar bust in at 10:30, handing out pizza sticks,’ Hill says. \u2018He was like, “This town is a great pizza stick stop, you have to have these pizza sticks.” I was like, “Mate, we\u2019ve got a race tomorrow, what are you doing?” He was so relaxed about it \u2026 life seemed to come pretty easy to him. Win races, have fun, no problems.’<\/p>\n

Despite his consistent top 10 finishes throughout the year, Poga\u010dar never slacked off working for teammates. ‘I remember stage 1 of Friuli [the 2018 Giro della Regione Friuli-Venezia Giulia], there were 20 of us or so coming into the finish, and he was chasing down every move for me for the last 20 km because he was like “Ben, you\u2019re a sprinter, you can win this.” He was all-in helping me, leading me out, even though he was the one that was going to win the tour, it had a big hilltop stage. He was really happy to ride for someone else if they had a chance.’ Poga\u010dar dropped him off at the front for the finish; unfortunately, Hill\u2019s back wheel slipped out of his frame, and he crashed.<\/p>\n

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After Poga\u010dar duly won the race overall days later, they dropped equipment off at the team\u2019s headquarters and then went into Ljubljana, to the local pizzeria. ‘I think they were drinking Long Island iced teas that night,’ Hill says, laughing. ‘He did [too]. I\u2019m not sure if it was a common occurrence for him, it was a kind of end-of-season party.’<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar did not miss out on teenage kicks completely for sport. He went to a few parties, and after training, he and his friends would occasionally stop off at Bar Julija in Dom\u017eale for a beer or two. But largely, he stuck to his goal of becoming a WorldTour cyclist without distractions. ‘I sometimes thought that cycling was making me miss out on all the fun,’ Poga\u010dar told Siol in 2019. ‘But in the end, it\u2019s worth putting so much effort into what you love to do. Cycling has given me a very special life. Without a bike and fellow cyclists, I would probably be bored.’<\/p>\n

While the Slovenian riders and foreigners on Ljubljana Gusto Xaurum were inevitably a little divided, Hill and his compatriot Tim Guy found Poga\u010dar to be one of the most welcoming riders. ‘Off the bike, you didn\u2019t get the idea of this unbelievably dogged, selfish, directed person,’ Guy says. ‘That\u2019s not the vibe he gave. I remember doing some interviews with him [for the team], and you\u2019re just laughing around.’ When the team went go-karting for Guy\u2019s 29th birthday, Poga\u010dar was one of the best, showing his ability at taking risks and following the racing line.<\/p>\n

Guy regards Poga\u010dar\u2019s finished superstar form as partly down to KD Rog\u2019s successful ‘gamification’ of development and training, rather than making him conform to a strict structure. ‘Because you can try to force someone into [being] a robot, and you probably don\u2019t want him as a robot. You want him doing stupid moves with 80 km to go. You could easily beat that out of someone \u2026 you could see that personality, and it seems like that stayed.’<\/p>\n

Tadej Poga\u010dar: Unstoppable by Andy McGrath (Bloomsbury Sport) is available to buy now<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This is an extract from the new book Tadej Poga\u010dar: Unstoppable by Andy McGrath (Bloomsbury Sport). Available to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":291986,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-291985","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291985","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=291985"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291985\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291986"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291985"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291985"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291985"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}