“We see it as complicated, but not impossible,” was UAE Team Emirates manager Joxean Fernández Matxin’s view on Monday of the feasibility of Tadej Pogačar capturing not one but two Grand Tours in 2024.
Following Pogačar’s surprise announcement on Sunday that he will try to become the first rider since Marco Pantani in 1998 to win Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year, 24 hours later there was no way that any other subject could dominate the UAE Team Emirates media day in Spain.
When it comes to following Pantani’s wheel tracks 26 years later, as Matxin told reporters, reasons ranged from looking for a new goal for Pogačar to his having reached an age – 25 – when he had developed enough physical resilience to tackle two Grand Tours.
But, according to Matxin, the main reason is that Tadej Pogačar being Tadej Pogačar, “the best rider in the world” as he put it, has what it takes as a racer to double his Grand Tour tally in a single season.
“It’s a new challenge, a new stimulus, and it’s good to change goals sometimes,” Matxin told reporters.
“We’re still keeping the idea of trying to win the Tour de France, but it’s the first time he’ll be doing two Grand Tours in a single season and at 25 years old, I think Tadej is ready for that challenge.”
Apart from a much later start than last year when he kicked off with the Clásica Jaén in early February, Pogačar’s focus on the two Grand Tours as well as the Paris Olympics and then the Zürich World Championships – means there’s no defence of his Tour of Flanders title. He’ll be skipping all of spring’s cobbled and Ardennes Classics, bar Liège-Bastogne-Liège, too.
“Barring stages that are completely flat, every single race Tadej takes part in, Tadej creates expectations,” Matxin said. “So we’re focussing on the Giro and Tour, and he won’t be doing the cobbled Classics.”
So is it possible for Pogačar to win both Grand Tours back to back, he was asked. “We’re crossing our fingers,” he answered. “For me, Tadej Pogačar is the best rider in the world, the one rider who is always in perfect condition every race he does.
“Last year he changed Tirreno-Adriatico for Paris-Nice, this year he’s doing the Giro. It’s the moment for him to do two Grand Tours in the same year. We think doing the cobbled Classics, then the Giro and the Tour and, hopefully, the Olympics is a lot, particularly when…
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