{"id":345886,"date":"2025-12-13T18:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T18:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345886\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T18:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T18:35:09","slug":"tadej-pogacar-not-obsessed-by-paris-roubaix-and-milan-san-remo-but-insists-its-impossible-to-have-the-same-amount-of-fun-at-the-tour-de-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345886\/","title":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar ‘not obsessed’ by Paris-Roubaix and Milan-San Remo, but insists ‘it\u2019s impossible to have the same amount of fun at the Tour de France’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadej Poga\u010dar <\/a>has almost completed cycling. He\u2019s won four Tours de France<\/a>, two World Championships, 10 Monuments, and much more in between.<\/p>\n

But as he marches on towards securing the title as the greatest cyclist of all time,<\/a> he insists that he is not as fixated as some presume about triumphing in the remaining races that he still hasn\u2019t conquered. Including, of course, Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix<\/a>, the only two Monuments he still has to win.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cIf I win these races,\u201d he corrected a journalist at UAE Team Emirates-XRG\u2019s media day in Benidorm who asked \u201cwhen\u201d the Slovenian would win San Remo and Roubaix. \u201cBut if I never win them, I will think that, more or less, there was not much more I could do [in cycling].<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there\u2019s always something else, anyway. There is a list of one week races I haven\u2019t been to yet, the Vuelta [a Espa\u00f1a]… there are so many things left to try to win. But the years are going so fast that maybe there\u2019s not much time to try to win everything that is left.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is quite a big calendar in cycling \u2013 big races, smaller races, and that\u2019s super nice, but I don\u2019t rush myself to win any of these. I like to go back to some races, I try to win the ones I haven\u2019t won yet but I am not obsessed about it like some people might think.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked again about Roubaix and San Remo \u2013 Poga\u010dar has previously quipped that the latter race \u201cis going to send me to my grave \u2013 he insisted: \u201cLike I said before, I\u2019m not obsessed with any of those.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, the 27-year-old admitted, Roubaix is the one race he\u2019s most desperate to tick off. \u201cI think if I could choose one [race to win between one extra Tour title or Roubaix] it\u2019d be Roubaix. I\u2019ve already won four [Tours], so if I win four of five\u2026 there is a bigger difference between zero and one than four and five.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n

\n

\"Tadej\n<\/p>\n

(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar\u2019s 2026 schedule is set to be a mirror of 2025\u2019s \u2013 at least in terms of his main goals: he will start at Strade Bianche before moving to northern Europe to ride the four spring Monuments, and then he\u2019ll go back to the Tour before concentrating on defending his rainbow bands at the World Championships.<\/p>\n

The only other change is that he will do the Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse, two of the four remaining \u2018Big-7\u2019 one-week stage races he\u2019s not yet won. Racing the Classics, and skipping the supposed bigger stage races like Paris-Nice and Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, is not the typical schedule of a Tour de France contender. But Poga\u010dar is not a typical bike rider.<\/p>\n

\u201cEverybody likes their own way to prepare for the biggest goals of the season,\u201d he said. \u201cI saw in myself that I can handle the Classics and the Tour as well.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously it\u2019s maybe harder to race a Monument or a super big Classic every week, and then switch to mountains and prepare for the Tour. Sometimes I would prefer to do a few one-week stage races in the first part of the season and go to altitude, but that\u2019s not me.<\/p>\n

\u201cI completely understand everyone else needs to win different races. I totally respect Remco\u2019s [Evenepoel] decision not to do the Classics, because it\u2019s not easy to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is an admission from Poga\u010dar that the Classics are inherently risky. \u201cThere is always a chance that you have bad luck and crash out of Roubaix and break bones and then can\u2019t start the Tour,\u201d he acknowledged.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut that can also happen in training and then you compromise the Tour. We are comprising the Tour every day, and it\u2019s not something you can do anything about. It\u2019s the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless, the Classics are when Poga\u010dar gets to race how he truly loves to race. \u201cThe Classics are one day: you go there, everything is concentrated on that one day, and it\u2019s not like the pressure of the Tour, where every day you are focused on the big goal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Tour is way more stressful, and it\u2019s impossible to have the same amount of fun when you go deep every day on the bike and you get tired. You work at the Tour for 21 stages and after you\u2019re happy with what you\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Especially in the past two seasons, Poga\u010dar has made elite level cycling look easy, a simple matter of turning up and strolling to a victory. But he is adamant that it is anything but.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my point of view, the racing battles are quite tight, even if it seems they are not. It is always tough, always close, even if you see four or five minute differences. It\u2019s always tight until the end.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd in my opinion there will be more guys coming and improving every year, young guys coming through. Now we had Lipo [Florian Lipowitz, third at the 2025 Tour] and Oscar Onley [fourth at the Tour] and so many other guys in the past who\u2019ve come to the Tour and had some bad luck.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is always going to be competition and you have to fight for the win. There is not one race where I think there is too much of a gap. Maybe when you check the results you think it was too easy for one guy, or another guy isn\u2019t on the level, but it\u2019s not true.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar has almost completed cycling. He\u2019s won four Tours de France, two World Championships, 10 Monuments, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-345886","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\/345886","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=345886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}