{"id":216249,"date":"2025-10-16T02:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/216249\/"},"modified":"2025-10-16T02:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-16T02:23:07","slug":"chris-horner-recalls-tramadol-use-as-he-relates-to-tadej-pogacars-pain-at-the-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/216249\/","title":{"rendered":"Chris Horner recalls tramadol use as he relates to Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s pain at the Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Chris Horner knows exactly what it means to drag a battered body through a Grand Tour, apparently.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking on The Butterfly Effect, his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@ChrisHornerCycling\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube channel<\/a>, the 2009 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a champion reflected on Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s injury-hit final week at the 2025 Tour de France \u2014 and the hidden consequences of racing in pain. Pogi recently opened up about some brutal knee pain that made him wonder if he could even finish the race. The American weighed in on what it\u2019s like to try and race when suffering from an injury.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn those days tramadol was legal, and I was using it heavily,\u201d Horner admitted of his own crash and knee injury during the 2009 season. \u201cIt got me through stages, but I could feel myself getting heavier. Just turning the pedals was a battle.\u201d<br \/>He wasn\u2019t pointing fingers at Pogacar, but highlighting how trauma alters the body \u2014 and often the rider\u2019s mindset.<\/p>\n<p>Poga\u010dar himself revealed on the Tour 202 podcast that he nearly abandoned what he called his hardest Tour yet. \u201cThe day after Ventoux I had knee problems, and I started doubting whether I\u2019d even be able to continue,\u201d he said. \u201cMy body was in shock. I didn\u2019t feel great.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Horner believes the trouble can be traced back to Poga\u010dar\u2019s late crash on Stage 11: \u201cHe overlapped wheels, hit the island, went down hard. You damage your hip alignment, then you\u2019ve got thousands of pedal strokes \u2014 something gives.\u201d After Stage 16, the UAE Team Emirates leader stopped attacking and started calculating.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is the adult version of Poga\u010dar,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclingmagazine.ca\/sections\/news\/2013-vuelta-a-espana-stage-21-matthews-takes-a-brace-of-sprints-horner-wins-his-first-grand-tour\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Horner<\/a> said. \u201cIf you can\u2019t drop Jonas straight away, you can\u2019t give him time either. He backed off the throttle.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It wasn\u2019t boredom or lack of ambition, Horner insisted, but protection. On stages 18 and 19, while riders like Ben O\u2019Connor and Thymen Arensman claimed headlines, Pogacar sat still \u2014 preserving his GC rather than lighting up the race.<\/p>\n<p>Horner also focused on a largely unseen factor: water retention. \u201cWhen your body goes into trauma, it absorbs everything,\u201d he explained. \u201cI\u2019ve been in hospital not eating for a week and came out heavier. You\u2019re supposed to lose weight in a Grand Tour \u2014 instead, you gain it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He recalled warning his own teammates back in 2009: don\u2019t wait for me on Palomar. \u201cI was taking tramadol aggressively just to ride, but the form disappeared.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>What struck Horner most was Poga\u010dar\u2019s honesty. \u201cI love that he\u2019s open about the injury. It tells the real story of why he raced differently.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And yet, Poga\u010dar still won \u2014 not just the Tour, but later Il Lombardia and the world title. Pain didn\u2019t define his season; endurance did. And what a season it was.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chris Horner knows exactly what it means to drag a battered body through a Grand Tour, apparently. Speaking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":216250,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[37377,49,48,104557,635,82,1422],"class_list":{"0":"post-216249","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-2025-vuelta-a-espana","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-chris-horner","12":"tag-cycling","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tadej-pogacar"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216249"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216249\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}