Top agent Alex Carera speaks about finding the joy again, and how Tadej Pogačar can keep it: ‘He was non-stop from January to July.’
The Tour is always a very difficult race but Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates – XRG) looked more drained this year than after his other three victories (Photo: Jean Catuffe/Getty Images)
Published September 10, 2025 07:16AM
With Tadej Pogačar about to return to racing for the first time since his Tour de France win, his agent Alex Carera explained the reason for his apparent slump in the final days of that race and how the rider and his team will avoid the same issue next year.
Pogačar stunned many in cycling when, as the Tour drew to a close, he spoke about burnout and possible retirement, even if he said the latter was still some years away.
He currently has a contract with UAE Emirates-XRG until the end of 2030. However he stunned the world of cycling when he suggested in July that he might hang up his wheels after the 2028 Olympic Games.
He would be just 30 years of age then, considerably younger than the retirement age of most Tour winners.
So what happened to bring about that potential change of heart, and what can be done to ensure he retains his usual joy of racing?
“Tadej’s season, until July, was really full gas all the time,” his agent Alex Carera told Velo this week.
“It was the first year that he rides all the classics. He rode Roubaix for the first time, and he rode Flanders, San Remo, Liège, Amstel, Flèche, plus the Dauphiné and Tour de France.
“After Liège, two days after Liège, he was already on training camp until the Tour. From January to July he had no stop.
“And it’s the first time like this, because when he won the previous Tours de France, maybe some seasons he doesn’t ride Flanders. He never rode Roubaix, and sometimes he also didn’t ride Liège.”
Pogačar’s change of mood was very marked during the Tour. He ran riot in the opening week, winning stages four and seven, and also taking second on stage two and in the stage 5 time trial.
He took yellow after the latter and even though he and his team voluntarily and temporarily relinquished leadership to Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) the next day, and again gave it up to Ben Healy (EF Education-EasyPost) at the end of stage 10, he was always in the driving seat.
Further victories followed on stages 12 and 13. However the wind gradually went out of his sails and he was visibly lacking his usual spark on and off the bike towards the end of the race.
A big change
Tadej Pogačar of Slovenia was smiling again in Paris but he looked drained at times in the third week of the Tour (Photo: Tim de Waele/Getty Images)
The version of Pogačar seen in the final week of the Tour was in clear contrast to how Carera had described him earlier this year.
Speaking back in February, he talked about an upbeat personality and a joy of the sport.
“A lot of fans in the world, not only Slovenia, love him for this reason,” he told Velo at the UAE Tour in February. “Because all the time he smiles, he enjoys when he stays on the bike. For him, is not a job, it is a great opportunity to live the life in the right way.”
Indeed his enjoyment of what he does was obvious at that event: the previous day, Pogačar had gone on a long range breakaway on flat terrain, just for the heck of it.
“He loves to race in this way,” Carera affirmed. “And when he takes the bike and goes for training, he also goes full gas. He loves riding the bike.
“It is the key point why Tadej is different than others.”
The balance between full on and full gas
Pogačar’s and his partner Urška Žigart have supported each other over the years, on and off the bike. Spending time with her since the Tour has been important in getting his spark back (Photo by Yoan Valat – Pool/Getty Images)
That effervescent tone changed completely at the end of the Tour. Many people felt a sense of anticlimax, with the expected all-out battle between the Slovenian, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and others spluttering rather than really sizzling.
“Every Tour de France is a really hard race,” Carera said. “It is hard because you ride three weeks. Sometimes you feel very well, and you drop Jonas for two minutes, and sometimes you don’t feel well, and the level is similar.
“But in the end, if you win the Tour de France with ten seconds or ten minutes, it doesn’t change anything.”
And yet saying the Tour is always a hard race doesn’t quite explain things. Last year Pogačar went on a rampage and won the three final stages. Had that Tour stretched another week, the feeling was he could have won more.
This time around it was different, with that attacking tendency snuffed out. Carera pointed out that Pogačar had a heavier workload this year and that this had an effect. He took on those extra races in the Classics, always trying to win, and had other commitments too.
For example, the day after Liège he travelled to Switzerland to do a photo and video shoot for sponsor Richard Mille. He then flew directly to Sierra Nevada for a training camp, and stayed there until shortly before the Critérium du Dauphiné.
After winning in Dauphiné he travelled to Isola for another camp; all in all, Carera said he was out of Monaco for three months. That’s a long time away from any semblance of normality.
As for the Tour itself, Carera pointed out that the weather wasn’t good in the final days of the race and suggested that may have played a part on Pogačar’s mood.
He also pointed to the more conservative tactics adopted by UAE Team Emirates-XRG, who wanted Pogačar and the team to follow wheels.
“Normally Tadej loves to attack. Instead he decided to stay more calm,” he told Velo. “He wanted his fourth Tour de France and that is it. And he wanted to go to home with Urška in Monaco, to have a no stress recovery.
“Sometimes that’s normal. It’s human.”
How is he now?
Pogačar won last year’s GP Cycliste de Montréal as part of his buildup to the world championships (Photo: Alex Broadway/Getty Images)
It’s now six and a half weeks since Pogačar has been in competitive action, bar the Komenda criterium in his native Slovenia.
That time has spent switching off, recharging mentally and physically, and then gradually switching on again.
Carera said that it was essential for him to spend time with his partner Urška Žigart, to hang out with friends and to take the time to recover.
“Not only the body, mostly in the mind,” he said. “Because in the end, Tadej is a young guy, a young man, and he’s human, and he needs recovery.
“It’s the first time that is you don’t see the smile on his face, because he was really tired. Then he recovers and it is not a problem.”
So how is he now? With the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec to take place on Friday and the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal Sunday, has the joy returned?
“Yes, I think so,” he answered. “He recovered for over a month. He deleted the Vuelta. After the Tour de France he rode only a one day race in Komenda. He comes back at the end of this week in Canada. In six weeks he recovered.
“He feels wells. He enjoyed that he went on the bike to see Urška in the Tour de Romandie. He came back to his normal life.”
Keeping the dream alive
If he and UAE Team Emirates – XRG structure things differently next season, Pogačar should be less jaded in the Tour (Photo by Loic VENANCE / AFP)
Pogačar is still only 26 years of age, young enough that talk of burnout and retirement is a red flag. He clearly wasn’t in his usual frame of mind at the end of the Tour, something that likely concerned UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Carera and others.
It is in their interests that his usual joy at racing persists, and that things are tweaked to ensure that is the case.
He and the team will have learned from this season’s experience, and will make changes for 2026.
“For sure next year he deletes some races, because he rode too much,” Carera confirmed. “People don’t understand it is not easy to be Tadej Pogačar. For other riders, if they arrive second, sometimes it is a great result.
“For the fans, if Tadej arrives second, he is the first who loses.”
Carera makes clear that UAE Team Emirates-XRG is always supportive of Pogačar; he said that both will sit down at the October training camp and will together decide his program for next year.
“It is not true that Tadej decides everything. It’s not true that the team decides everything. Always from 2019, they decide together,” he said. “And for sure they will find the right balance between the races that he loves, and the races that are important for the team.”
The identity of those races will emerge at some point over the winter.
And, despite rumors that Pogačar really didn’t enjoy the Tour this year, it appears that Pogačar fans need not be concerned that he might miss the sport’s biggest event.
“The Tour de France is for sure a big goal next year,” Carera said. “And also San Remo, and Roubaix.”
Everything else will be about preserving balance and keeping the joy of racing alive.