{"id":141670,"date":"2025-09-16T18:05:07","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T18:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/141670\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T18:05:07","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T18:05:07","slug":"i-regained-my-motivation-and-confidence-montreal-performance-sets-tadej-pogacars-on-track-for-world-championships-double","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/141670\/","title":{"rendered":"‘I regained my motivation and confidence’ – Montr\u00e9al performance sets Tadej Poga\u010dar’s on track for World Championships double"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadej Poga\u010dar will head to Rwanda for the UCI Road World Championships<\/a> later this week, buoyed by his performance at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Montr\u00e9al after revealing he missed almost a week of vital training in early September.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar will target the elite men’s time trial on Sunday, with Remco Evenepoel his biggest rival, before staying in Rwanda for the elite men’s road race on Sunday September 28.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar won the road race world title in Zurich last year with a long solo breakaway and a dominant performance. Slovenian national coach Uro\u0161 Murn is quietly hoping Poga\u010dar can complete a rare double in Rwanda, with the tough circuits for both races expected to suit him.<\/p>\n

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“Our first goal is of course to repeat last year’s success. Everything that comes along will just be an addition, we mustn’t be greedy,” Murn told Slovenian television before preparing to travel to Rwanda on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“This year will be harder than last year, because all the national teams will be attacking only us.”<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar arguably faces a difficult task to retain his road race title in the 267.5km, 5,400m elevation gain race.<\/p>\n

The likes of Tom Pidcock (Great Britain), Giulio Ciccone and Giulio Pellizzari (Italy) and Juan Ayuso (Spain) all showed their form at the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a>, while Julian Alaphilippe (France) impressed by winning the Grand Prix Cycliste de Qu\u00e9bec<\/a> and Evenepoel showed some form at the Tour of Britain.<\/p>\n

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Poga\u010dar also faces’ internal’ rivalry from his UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammates such as Jay Vine (Australia), Pavel Sivakov (France) and especially Isaac del Toro (Mexico).<\/p>\n

Before the Canadian WorldTour races, Poga\u010dar hadn’t raced since the Tour de France<\/a> and so was looking for answers about his end of season form.<\/p>\n

“I want to peak for the World Championships,” he said before the races, using the days in Canada before the races to complete an extra block of training.<\/p>\n

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Poga\u010dar was only 29th at the Grand Prix Cycliste de Qu\u00e9bec after he and the peloton failed to catch Alaphilippe and a few others who attacked with 75km to go in order to anticipate any late attacks from the Slovenian.<\/p>\n

It was Poga\u010dar’s worst result in a one-day race this year and he and UAE Team Emirates-XRG raced hard in Montr\u00e9al to ensure they were in the thick of the action. Poga\u010dar attacked with 35km to go, waited for Brandon McNulty, and then generously gifted the American victory. For Poga\u010dar it was more important to have regained his form.<\/p>\n

“It was a fantastic day, as always here in Canada. I love racing here. I’m happy that I’m in great shape, and I’m even happier that Brandon won,” he said, admitting he<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore coming to Canada, I was a bit worried that my form wasn’t great, because I was sick all week leading up to it. I couldn’t do all the training as planned. That’s why I was a bit apprehensive about this.<\/p>\n

“In Quebec, my legs weren’t great, but I raced well there and found some rhythm. In training and in Quebec, I regained my motivation and confidence. Looking back, I’m glad I went to Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n

Subscribe to Cyclingnews to unlock unlimited access to our coverage of the first-ever UCI Road World Championships on African soil. Our team of journalists will bring you all the major storylines, in-depth analysis, and more directly from the action in Rwanda as the next rainbow jerseys are decided. Find out more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar will head to Rwanda for the UCI Road World Championships later this week, buoyed by his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-141670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}