{"id":332669,"date":"2025-12-07T11:39:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:39:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332669\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T11:39:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T11:39:07","slug":"despite-all-his-success-he-keeps-his-feet-on-the-ground","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/332669\/","title":{"rendered":"Despite all his success he keeps his feet on the ground"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTadej is a friend, it\u2019s always a pleasure to see him and to chat,\u201d he told Gazzetta. \u201cWe see each other rarely during the year because we have different schedules. I\u2019m not an expert in cycling history, but I don\u2019t think that anyone like him has ever existed.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Pogacar\u2019s results command awe \u2014 Tour titles,<\/a> world championships, monument wins \u2014 Philipsen believes the real story lies in how unaffected he remains by it all. \u201cI think everyone sees him as a god of this sport, even though I know him as a very normal guy,\u201d he said. \u201cHis strength lies in the fact that despite all his success he keeps his feet on the ground and enjoys life.\u201d<\/p>\n

That humility, Philipsen suggests, is as much a competitive weapon as his ability to dominate Grand Tours. It shapes how he moves through the peloton, how he interacts with rivals, and even how he handles pressure when expectations spiral beyond anyone else\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Philipsen\u2019s perspective carries weight precisely because it comes from inside Pogacar\u2019s small circle of genuine friends in the peloton \u2014 riders who see him away from the podiums, cameras and headlines. His comments to La Gazzetta dello Sport offer a reminder that Pogacar\u2019s dominance is built on more than numbers and results; it\u2019s underpinned by an attitude that refuses to let success distort who he is.<\/p>\n

And in a sport where pressure, scrutiny and expectation can consume even the most gifted talents, Philipsen believes that Pogacar\u2019s ability to stay grounded may be the single most important reason he continues to sit apart from the rest.<\/p>\n

For Philipsen, that quality is not just rare \u2014 it is unprecedented. And from someone who spends so much of the season racing against him, Philipsen’s message is clear: cycling has never seen a champion quite like Pogacar.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTadej is a friend, it\u2019s always a pleasure to see him and to chat,\u201d he told Gazzetta. \u201cWe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[163185,64,63,784,67721,85,6494,19805],"class_list":{"0":"post-332669","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-alpecin-deceuninck","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-jasper-philipsen","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tadej-pogacar","15":"tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332669","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=332669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}