{"id":197258,"date":"2025-10-13T14:40:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T14:40:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/197258\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T14:40:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T14:40:11","slug":"pogacar-beaten-by-40-year-old-lawyer-in-pogi-challenge-charity-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/197258\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar beaten by 40-year-old lawyer in Pogi Challenge charity ride"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>You\u2019d think after winning Il Lombardia for a fifth time on Saturday, Tadej Poga\u010dar would have a day off. But no, the world champion was back in action the following day on his home roads in Krvavec, Slovenia, in a charity race against 1,189 cyclists up a 15km climb with 1,189m of elevation gain.<\/p>\n<p>Poga\u010dar passed every participant with the exception of four-time British hill climb champion and 2024 runner-up, Andrew Feather.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/pogichallenge.com\/en\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Pogi Challenge<\/a> charity ride started with a non-timed 9.1km warm-up, before participants headed up the timed climb itself. Sportingly, Poga\u010dar gave them a six-minute head start.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"797\" height=\"500\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Pog-challenge-results.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-944028\"\/>Andrew Feather was the only rider to arrive at the top of the climb ahead of Poga\u010dar. pogichallenge.com<\/p>\n<p>He passed all 1,189 riders with the exception of Feather who, although his time of 44:15.3 was around 2.5 minutes <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bikeradar.com\/features\/tadej-pogacar-winning-machine\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">slower than Poga\u010dar\u2019s<\/a> 40:44.5, was still over three minutes ahead of him arriving at the finish line.<\/p>\n<p>After the event, Feather told Cycling Weekly: \u201cI kept on looking over my shoulder thinking he was going to come up at some point, but he didn\u2019t \u2013 he didn\u2019t manage to catch me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Interviewed in Slovene after the race by journalist Igor Tominec, Poga\u010dar was asked if UAE Team Emirates would be signing Feather for 2026.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We already have a full team. Those who go uphill so fast could be used in races. Everyone has their own path, maybe they don\u2019t even want to be among the professionals themselves. I have respect for those riders,\u201d he replied.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"3000\" height=\"2000\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/20190926_SB_5DSR_MG_7346-982236e.jpg\" alt=\"Andrew Feather undertaking VO2 max test at the University of Bath\" class=\"wp-image-402173\"\/>Andrew Feather&#8217;s VO2 max was as good as many pros back in 2019. Simon Bromley<\/p>\n<p>Now aged 40, back in 2019 we took Feather to the Human Performance Lab at the University of Bath, finding that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bikeradar.com\/advice\/fitness-and-training\/andrew-feather-hill-climb-champion\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">his VO2 max<\/a> was good enough to rival <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bikeradar.com\/news\/why-are-tour-de-france-cyclists-built-the-way-they-are\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tour de France riders<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Whether Feather wants to turn pro is moot. He already has a full-time job as a lawyer in the UK, but is looking to retake the British hill climb title at the 2025 event, which takes place on Bank Road in Matlock, Derbyshire on Sunday, 26 October. The climb isn\u2019t quite as long as that in Slovenia, with an elevation gain of 101.44m in 805 metres.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"You\u2019d think after winning Il Lombardia for a fifth time on Saturday, Tadej Poga\u010dar would have a day&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":197259,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-197258","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\/197258","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=197258"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197258\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}