This article was first published in Issue 139 of our magazine
What is it like to work for a leader like Tadej Pogačar?
With Tadej, you have two different reasons why people like to work for him. Everybody wants to help him because he is the best rider in the world, but he is also a nice person. Even if he wasn’t the best in the world, everyone would be happy to help because of the person he is. I respect how he deals with all the attention he gets too. I have spent some time with him and got to know the life of Tadej for two or three days and it’s not always a gift to have this attention. Not many people could handle it like he does. Sometimes I come out of the bus and people ask me if I can get Tadej to sign something because they have been waiting there six hours – you can’t say yes to everyone.
Although you work for Tadej often, you also get your own chances from UAE Team Emirates-XRG to try to win. Is that important to you?
At the Tour de France this year when I won stage 15, it was really unexpected. I took the chance and I am very grateful, but the team had already given me a gift to go for the polka dot jersey earlier in the race and wear that for a few days.
There are many races where I am really the leader, like in the Classics, and I like having a mix because it motivates me in training to be the best version of myself. One part of that is for helping the team, the other part is for myself.
On stage 15 of the Tour, you made your winning attack with more than 40 kilometres remaining. What goes through your head when you are off the front alone for that long?
To arrive as fast as possible to the finish. It’s not that I think about how nice it is to win. You’re fully focused doing what you need to do, taking every corner perfectly, hydrating, and keeping the body cool. In the moment, I’m not thinking about anything but going as fast as I can.
What goes into preparing for the Tour de France?
Just yesterday we were talking about the calendar for next year and what races I am going to do. I said to the team: the Tour de France is nice, but for me the nicest thing about it is the preparation. We go on the altitude camp with a good group, we have a lot of fun, we make a barbeque, we’re spoiled by the team to have two chefs at the training camp in an amazing hotel. The highlight of the race for me was the preparation.
Your social media shows you doing mountain biking, gravel riding and long-distance…