Tadej Pogačar is looking forward to fighting for Grand Tour success with Remco Evenepoel in the years to come, suggesting the next few years of Grand Tour racing “are gonna be really interesting.”
Pogačar turns 24 on September 21 and Evenepoel will be 23 in January. They are leading the new, young and incredibly talented generation of riders who are taking control of the sport and are likely to go head to head in the 2024 Tour de France. Pogačar won the tour in 2020 and 2021 and was second this year, after also dominating the hardest Classics on the calendar like Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia.
Egan Bernal, Carlos Rodriguez and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers), 2022 Tour de France winner Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) are all part of the next-now generation of Grand Tour contenders.
“I think next year is gonna be really interesting… I think even bigger competition is coming for the next couple of years,” Pogačar told Cyclingnews and other media in Canada as he prepared to ride the Grands Prix Cyclistes de Québec et de Montréal, clearly relishing the idea of future Grand Tout battles.
“I also hope Egan Bernal will come back after his crash. We’re gonna have a fantastic couple of years battling each other.”
Pogačar is in Canada as he steps up his end of season racing programme and prepares for the World Championships in Australia. Like Wout van Aert and others he will fly directly to Australia and is taking aim at the rainbow jersey and the end of season races in Italy, especially Il Lombardia.
He has been training hard in recent weeks but revealed he has been watching the Vuelta a España closely and impressed by the way Evenepoel had dominated the race and shown his true Grand Tour credentials.
“I missed some stages because of training but was watching the race on TV a lot. It’s been good entertainment,” he said.
“Remco looks super good. In my opinion, he’s in a good position to bring it home. He looks strong, he looks calm. He’s really, really strong.
“Everybody knows that he’s super strong and super talented. He can do everything: time trial, climb and ride on the flat. I was expecting him to be good and he’s delivered on the expectations.”
Pogačar had originally planned to ride the Vuelta a España in 2023 and so could have crossed swords with Evenepoel. However, after an intense three-week battle with Vingegaard and his first Tour de France defeat, he pushed…
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