2024 a été l’année de Tadej Pogacar. Après une pause dans la compétition suite à son triomphe au Tour de France, l’équipe UAE Team Emirates est un peu incertaine de sa forme avant le GP du Québec, le 13 septembre.
“Le Québec est une course assez ouverte, mais par le passé, les attaques ne fonctionnaient pas très bien et souvent, on en arrive au sprint, mais le sprint est super dur”, prédit Pogacar lors de sa conférence de presse d’avant-course, dans des propos recueillis par Eurosport. “Mais ici, nous avons une équipe solide, alors on verra. Je pense que nous pouvons faire une course difficile et nous verrons comment les jambes tournent si je peux attaquer ou simplement attendre le sprint.
Whilst ordinarily, Pogacar would be the almost unquestioned favourite wherever he turns up to race, given his lengthy post-Tour de France layoff, the Slovenian isn’t so certain he’ll be at his very best this time around. “Normally, after a long period of training, the first race is not so good,” the Slovenian admits honestly. “But I saw at the beginning of the year for Strade Bianche how the preparation was for that race and I think I can be pretty decent in Quebec, better than previous years after the long period of no racing but you never know.”
One of the reasons it’s been so long since Pogacar pinned on a race number, was that he opted against competing at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, despite some outside pressures to compete. “I didn’t like a lot of people pushing me to go to the Olympics, calling me and saying that ‘I should be there, I could get an easy medal’,” he recalls. “Nothing is easy in cycling, especially the Olympic Games on this kind of parcours. I think I made the right decision because the day after the Tour de France I was completely destroyed.”
“The legs were tired, but I think it was a hard season from Strade Bianche to the Tour de France,” he concludes. “It was all the way full gas and I was in super good shape and after the Tour when I switched off, my body went kind of into shutdown mode and I was feeling quite bad the first two weeks.”
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