{"id":363230,"date":"2025-12-21T21:29:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:29:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/363230\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T21:29:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T21:29:07","slug":"tadej-pogacar-smashes-his-own-kom-record-on-coll-de-rates-by-24-seconds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/363230\/","title":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar smashes his own KOM record on Coll de Rates by 24 seconds"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"fe00c9a9-73a4-4af2-9cb0-60b161eec5cc\">In the middle of a training camp with his UAE Team Emirates-XRG team on the Costa Blanca in Spain, <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/tadej-pogacar\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/riders\/tadej-pogacar\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> smashed his own KOM record on Coll de Rates. The world champion slashed his own Strava KOM record by 24 seconds, clocking 11:57 on the 6.32km with 5.5% average elevation gain on a popular training and testing climb near Calpe. He averaged a speed of 32.3 km\/h and exceeded the time of 12:21 that he had set just a year earlier.<\/p>\n<p>The segment came during a December 19 training ride he named <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/16785950616\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.strava.com\/activities\/16785950616\/\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\">\u2018Merry Christmas and happy new year.<\/a>\u2019 Poga\u010dar, alongside 2026 teammates Kevin Vermaerke, Florian Vermeersch, Nils Politt, Pavel Sivakov and Domen Novak, covered 226 km in just over six hours, averaging 36.8 km\/h while climbing a total of 4,203 metres.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-seasonal\" data-url=\"\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"fe00c9a9-73a4-4af2-9cb0-60b161eec5cc-2\">Not only did he smash his own record, but the Slovenian also crushed the KOM that was just set by Cedrik Bakke Christophersen earlier that same day on a different segment. The 24-year-old Dane was celebrated by his Unibet Rose Rockets team <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/rockets_cycling\/status\/2002055676496097710\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\" data-url=\"https:\/\/x.com\/rockets_cycling\/status\/2002055676496097710\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\">on social media<\/a> for his time of 4:19 on a 2km section with 6.4% elevation gain named \u2018Test coll de rates\u2019, a time that beat the previous record of 4:20 set by &#8211; you guessed it &#8211; Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n<p>You may like<\/p>\n<p>But it was a short-lived celebration, as Poga\u010dar set a time of 4:06 on the same day, and retook his KOM crown.<\/p>\n<p>Good sport, Unibet Rose Rockets posted again, saying \u2018That didn\u2019t age well.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>Last week, Poga\u010dar <a data-analytics-id=\"inline-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/pro-cycling\/training-camps\/tadej-pogacar-eyes-paris-roubaix-victory-and-historic-fifth-tour-de-france-title-as-focal-points-of-confirmed-2026-racing-programme\/\" data-mrf-recirculation=\"inline-link\" data-before-rewrite-localise=\"https:\/\/www.cyclingnews.com\/pro-cycling\/training-camps\/tadej-pogacar-eyes-paris-roubaix-victory-and-historic-fifth-tour-de-france-title-as-focal-points-of-confirmed-2026-racing-programme\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">outlined his schedule<\/a> that includes targeted Monuments of Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix and Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge before turning his attention to stage races that will lead up to his bid to win a historic fifth Tour de France title.<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">That didn\u2019t age well. https:\/\/t.co\/efuRwMspXa pic.twitter.com\/r6eLDNMNjv<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/2002072399022600482\" data-url=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/cantworkitout\/status\/2002072399022600482\" target=\"_blank\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">December 19, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the middle of a training camp with his UAE Team Emirates-XRG team on the Costa Blanca in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363231,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-363230","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\/363230","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=363230"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363230\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}