{"id":298775,"date":"2025-11-21T07:18:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T07:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/298775\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T07:18:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T07:18:10","slug":"dont-want-to-end-my-career-without-having-tried-everything","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/298775\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Don’t want to end my career without having tried everything’"},"content":{"rendered":"

From February to October, Tadej Pogacar<\/a> delivered yet another wonder year. Twenty victories, including three Monuments, the Tour de France<\/a>, the European Championships and the World Championships\u2026 So what is there left for the Slovenian serial winner to achieve in 2026? His bingo card is almost full \u2013 but not completely. And that keeps nagging at him. The leader of UAE Team Emirates \u2013 XRG knows exactly what he has to do.He knows himself that his year was almost perfect. Almost, but not entirely. “I\u2019d give it a 9, but there\u2019s always room for improvement in every aspect of your life,” Pogacar tells Marca<\/a>. “\u201cI think I can still improve in certain areas, both on and off the bike. It can be better.” Because in Paris\u2013Roubaix and Milan\u2013Sanremo, he was unable to win.<\/p>\n

And it wasn\u2019t for lack of trying. In both races he ended up beaten by Mathieu van der Poel. Especially in Roubaix we discovered a new side of Pogacar: the true cobbles specialist. In his first appearance at the Hell of the North, only the Dutchman from Alpecin\u2013Deceuninck could follow when the world champion put the hammer down. Van der Poel then profited when the Slovenian crashed<\/p>\n

\u201cI like challenges and I try to tweak my race programme a bit every year,\u201d Pogacar explains his Roubaix debut. \u201cBut now I think I\u2019m pretty limited in what I can race. Every year there\u2019s the Tour de France, the main goal for the team and for me. But yes, I like trying new things, and in the coming years I don\u2019t want to end my career without having tried everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"tadej-pogacar\"\/Pogacar ‘hugely motivated’ for revenge at Roubaix and SanremoThe Tour de France will remain the main target next year. \u201cBut I also want to prove myself in the classics<\/a>, to see if I can improve in one-day races compared to this year or last year,\u201d he says.\u00a0\u201cMilan\u2013Sanremo and Roubaix are two races where I\u2019m enormously motivated to try again and fight for the win,”\u00a0stresses the world champion, who already turned Sanremo and Roubaix into all-time spectacles in 2025.And the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a>? The Spanish Grand Tour is the only one missing from his palmar\u00e8s and therefore an obvious goal. But an obsession, it is not. “No, I\u2019m not obsessed with it. I want to go to the Vuelta, I want to take part and of course I also want to win. But if I were to end my career today, I\u2019d be very happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"isaac-del-toro-tadej-pogacar\"\/Pogacar on Seixas and Del Toro: ‘I don’t find the same qualities in them as I do in myself’<\/p>\n

At 27, Pogacar is still very young, even if he already has 108 victories to his name. For five years now the Slovenian has topped the UCI rankings, and together with Remco Evenepoel he was one of the first truly young global superstars. Now, riders like Paul Seixas and Isaac Del Toro are itching to follow in his footsteps.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese days everyone is obsessed with young talent,\u201d Pogacar observes. \u201cNo one stops searching, especially not around the Tour de France. That\u2019s why we see so many riders arriving at a very high level already: strong legs, strong minds, very professional. Young riders like Paul Seixas or Isaac Del Toro are impressive. I want to see how their careers develop.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world champion will be following them with genuine interest. \u201cI see what they do well and what they don\u2019t do so well. I\u2019ve walked a similar path and it\u2019s very interesting to see how quickly they\u2019re rising. In my case it all went a bit slower, but yes, it\u2019s very interesting to follow them and compete with them.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From February to October, Tadej Pogacar delivered yet another wonder year. Twenty victories, including three Monuments, the Tour…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":298776,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,5590,784,85,6494,2845,19805],"class_list":["post-298775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-classics","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france","tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298775","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=298775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/298775\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/298776"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=298775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=298775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=298775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}