{"id":920831,"date":"2026-10-04T23:18:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-04T23:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/920831\/"},"modified":"2026-10-04T23:18:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T23:18:11","slug":"out-of-form-tadej-pogacar-sets-record-straight-at-european-champs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/920831\/","title":{"rendered":"Out of form Tadej Poga\u00e7ar sets record straight at European Champs"},"content":{"rendered":"

Remco Evenepoel won the European Cycling Championships<\/a> in Slovenia on Sunday after a nail-biter. It was a European Championship without Tadej Pogacar<\/a>\u2014or was it. The injured superstar was present in his home country and spoke to the press afterwards for the first time since his serious crash in the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.Pogacar forced to admit he is not race-ready<\/p>\n

Last week, news broke that Pogacar still wanted to compete in the European Championships, but after the championships ended, he set the record straight.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we [he and his partner Ur\u0161ka \u017digart<\/a>, who was also unable to compete because of a broken jaw] watched the women\u2019s race, we thought, \u2018Darn it, I should be there; we should be there.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

“She, in particular, is feeling great, so it’s hard to watch the race and know that you could be a part of it,” he continues.<\/p>\n

Pogacar himself was also spotted on the course. \u201cI\u2019ve been cycling for a week now, and I know my form is pretty poor, so I didn\u2019t want to compete. But yeah, a week or two ago, I would have been really eager to be at the start here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more below the photo!<\/p>\n

\"tadej-pogacar\"\/Pogacar pays tribute to retiring national teammate Mezgec\u00a0Pogacar was there at the European Championships after all, partly to watch Luka Mezgec<\/a>\u2019s final race.<\/p>\n

\u201cLuka has been a very important part of my career. His biggest victory came when I was about fifteen years old, at the Giro in Trieste,\u201d Pogacar recalls. Mezgec was riding for Sunweb at the time.<\/p>\n

“He was sort of an idol and mentor to me back then on the national team. And yes, I learned a lot from him, and he really had an amazing career,” continues the Slovenian powerhouse, who was later honoured in his home country. <\/a><\/p>\n

“I think a lot of young kids\u2014young cyclists\u2014should try to follow in his footsteps. As a lead-out rider and helper, and as a mentor and road captain within the team. So yes, being here with him today is really great, and I\u2019m honored to be sitting next to him,\u201d said Pogacar.<\/p>\n

So the season is already over for Pogacar. He won’t be racing in the Tour of Lombardy<\/a> next week either.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Remco Evenepoel won the European Cycling Championships in Slovenia on Sunday after a nail-biter. It was a European…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":920832,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,128481,174866,82,1422],"class_list":["post-920831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-european-cycling-championships","tag-luka-mezgec","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920831","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=920831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/920831\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/920832"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=920831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=920831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=920831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}