{"id":241427,"date":"2025-11-03T13:59:11","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/241427\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T13:59:11","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T13:59:11","slug":"golden-statue-of-tadej-pogacar-unveiled-in-abu-dhabi-as-part-of-uae-team-emirates-xrgs-end-of-season-celebrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/241427\/","title":{"rendered":"Golden statue of Tadej Poga\u010dar unveiled in Abu Dhabi as part of UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s end-of-season celebrations"},"content":{"rendered":"

A golden statue of Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> was unveiled on Saturday in front of the Abu Dhabi Cycling Club in the UAE, as cycling’s top team \u2013 UAE Team Emirates-XRG \u2013 celebrated another historic season<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The team’s big stars, including World Champion Poga\u010dar, were present in their home nation this past weekend to meet and ride out with fans, sponsors and the local cycling community, as part of their end-of-season celebrations at Al Hudayriat Island Circuit.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While the team set a new record of 95 wins in the season and 97 victories<\/a> in the calendar year of 2025, Poga\u010dar was once again the main event, managing 20 wins himself, which included three Monuments, a second consecutive world title in Rwanda and a defence of his Tour de France title and so a fourth yellow jersey<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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The statue shows the Slovenian during his bowing celebration, which he’s brought out several times throughout his 103 career victories, notably at Cauterets-Cambasque, after beating Jonas Vingegaard on stage 6 of the 2023 Tour de France, atop Isola 2000 at the 2024 Tour, and after dominating a double ascent of Monte Grappa at the 2024 Giro d’Italia.<\/p>\n

Image 1 of 3<\/p>\n

\"UNSPECIFIED,Stage 6 of the 2023 Tour de France to Cauterets-Cambasque(Image credit: Getty Images)\"BASSANOStage 20 of the 2024 Giro d’Italia to Bassano del Grappa(Image credit: Getty Images)\"ISOLAStage 19 of the 2024 Tour de France to Isola 2000(Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Having joined UAE in 2019 and started his WorldTour career as a 21-year-old, Poga\u010dar has developed into their outright leader, arguably the greatest cyclist of all time and an iconic figure in the Emirati nation’s small but growing cycling scene, with more than 1,000 people coming out to meet him and his teammates at the weekend.<\/p>\n

Riders have long been honoured with statues, from iconic Spanish climber Federico Bahamontes in Toledo, Nairo Quintana in Colombia, and Tom Boonen’s legs on the Taaienberg, with Poga\u010dar now joining them.<\/p>\n

Now into the off-season, Poga\u010dar will be looking to reset before he kicks on into another season of expected dominance in 2026<\/a>, where he could match the record of five Tour de France victories held by the greats of Merckx, Hinault, Indurain and Anquetil and match Peter Sagan’s World Championships hat-trick.<\/p>\n

The latest race content, interviews, features, reviews and expert buying guides, direct to your inbox!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A golden statue of Tadej Poga\u010dar was unveiled on Saturday in front of the Abu Dhabi Cycling Club…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-241427","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\/241427","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=241427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}