Tadej Pogačar skips Disneyland trip as World Championships preparation begins

Pogačar aiming for GP Québec and Montréal double as he makes a return to WorldTour racing in Canada

Tadej Pogačar arrived in Canada on Tuesday excited, confident and ready to race after a long layoff since taking his third Tour de France title in July.

After the highs of becoming the first man since Marco Pantani in 1998 to do the Giro d’Italia Tour double, the Slovenian enjoyed a peaceful, relaxing summer in his home country. But now as he gets set to make his return to racing in Canada at the Grand Prix Cyclistes de Québec and Montréal, he says he’s ready for his next huge goal.

Pogačar is now aiming to become only the third man to complete cycling’s triple crown by winning his first road world title in Zurich later this month. Despite being delayed in Paris before the long drag across the Atlantic, he arrived in Québec with a smile and joked that if it wasn’t for team staff talking him out of it, an impromptu trip to Disneyland could have been on the cards before he finally boarded his flight.

“I did want to go to Disneyland,” he added with a grin. “It would have been really good. But it was not so convenient in the end. Luke [UAE Emirates press officer] was not really happy with the idea to take a train there and spend three hours on a kid’s playground.”

With the joking out of the way, it was on to the serious stuff as Pogačar told the gathered journalists that a potential repeat of his 2022 GP Montréal triumph is firmly on his mind as he gets set to test his form before the worlds.

“The World Championships has been a really high, high goal since December,” he explained. “I did a recon already. It’s a really nice parcours, I think it suits me really well so we’ll see what happens.

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