{"id":389599,"date":"2026-01-03T19:39:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:39:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/389599\/"},"modified":"2026-01-03T19:39:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-03T19:39:11","slug":"belgian-coach-hails-slovenians-dominance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/389599\/","title":{"rendered":"Belgian coach hails Slovenian\u2019s dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Belgian football coach and former player\u00a0Hein Vanhaezebrouck is also passionate about cycling, something that comes as no surprise given Belgium’s deep-rooted cycling heritage. That is why he wanted to weigh in the current state of the sport in a recent interview.<\/p>\n

Pogacar has millions of fans around the world, and\u00a0Vanhaezebrouck seems to be one of them.\u00a0\u201cI am a big fan,\u201d he said in quotes collected by Wieler Krant<\/a>. \u201cA rider like Pogacar is born once every fifty years. But it can\u2019t always be Pogacar attacking from fifty kilometres out. There has to be a battle.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogacar is the best rider in the world, and he is almost unbeatable in every race he starts in, Tour de France included.\u00a0\u201cWe have to be honest: as long as he takes part in the Tour \u2013 and is ready to compete for the GC \u2013 I don\u2019t think anyone else can win,\u201d he said bluntly.<\/p>\n


\nCan Evenepoel challenge Pogacar?Remco Evenepoel recently stated that he is very motivated to improve his level in 2026 with his new team Red Bull – BORA – hansgrohe<\/a> and wants to reach Pogacar’s level to be a\u00a0 real contender at the Tour de France this year. <\/p>\n

“I want to be better than him. That\u2019s very difficult, we all know that. But that\u2019s the reason I came here. To take those steps. To go over it, on it and over it. That will take a lot of strength, but I\u2019m very motivated and I really needed this new step to open up a kind of ceiling. I hope I can really break through this year,\u201d Evenepoel said a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Jean-Marie Dedecker, mayor of Middelkerke, shared his opinion. \u201cThe injury of Pogacar does show that he can also drop out once,\u201d Dedecker said. \u201cIn any case, I wonder whether he can keep this up for another seven years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dedecker sees a clear strategy for Evenepoel. \u201cThen I look at Evenepoel. Make sure you\u2019re ready. Make sure you\u2019re better than Vingegaard at the moment when Pogacar is not there,\u201d he concluded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Belgian football coach and former player\u00a0Hein Vanhaezebrouck is also passionate about cycling, something that comes as no surprise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":389600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,8396,85,6494,2845],"class_list":["post-389599","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-cycling","tag-remco-evenepoel","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-tour-de-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389599","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=389599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/389599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/389600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=389599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=389599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=389599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}