Tadej Pogacar, the 21-year-old Slovenian who became the second youngest to win the Tour de France – Observer

09/20/2020 World



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Tadej Pogacar, a 21-year-old Slovenian, won the Tour de France this Saturday after canceling the 57-second handicap that took him to his compatriot Primoz Roglic. In one of the most emotional and unpredictable clocks of recent years, The young cyclist completed an impressive penultimate stage, orchestrated an authentic theatrical coup and this Sunday he has the consecration on the Champs Elysees.

In this Saturday’s time trial, with the rise of La Planche des Belles Filles, one thing was certain: the winner of the 2020 Tour de France would be decided when all the cyclists crossed the finish line, without having to wait for the final stage this Sunday. Primoz Roglic, another Slovenian, had a 57-second lead and seemed to have an almost guaranteed win before he even got on the bike. Pogacar, who was second in the general classification before the decisive time trial, did an impressive test, annulled the handicap, won without a doubt and added the conquest of the Tour to the first place in the mountain, the youth and the victory on the stage.

Tadej Pogacar thus became the first Slovenian to win the Tour de France and the second youngest to reach it, just behind Henri Cornet, who was 19 years old when he won the second edition of the competition in 1904. The UAE Team Emirates rider, who came first in Volta ao Algarve last year and third in his Vuelta debut, The first participation in the Tour ends with the conquest of the competition and three victories in stages.

The still short career of the Slovenian began about 10 years ago, not necessarily because of what he did, but especially because of those who were watching him. Andrej Hauptman, a former cyclist and bronze medalist for Slovenia at the 2011 World Cup, was the best coach in the country at the time and decided to attend a small athletes race. “I was a little late and the first thing I saw was a large group of teenage cyclists leading and a little boy, much younger, 100 meters behind and trying to keep up,” Hauptman recalled in a recent interview with Procycling. The image, however, was only an optical illusion.

“I told the organizers that they had to do something to help that little boy get back to the front. They said, ‘No, it’s not what you’re thinking. It is ahead. There is a forward lap. ‘ And that little boy was Tadej ”, he told the coach. That first meeting made Andrej Hauptman continue to accompany the young cyclist, becoming his coach and mentor. “Hauptman showed me the way to cycling,” Pogacar said, when asked about the former rider’s influence on his own career.

72nd Criterium du Dauphine 2020 - Stage 5

The 21-year-old cyclist had never participated in the main cycling competition in the world

Hauptman’s influence proved critical when he joined a great international team and Pogacar ended up signing with UAE Team Emirates. due to the coach’s close contacts with the current the team manager, Mauro Gianetti. “All the cyclists that I accompany go to this team. I told them I had one more. That it was new, that we had to see how to deal with it. But if we look at everything he did this year [2019], you can see that it was the right time for Tadej to turn pro. It was not too early ”, added the technician.

This chance and chance encounter turned out to be the turning point in Pogacar’s career. “I was nine years old. I was racing with guys two years older than me because we didn’t have categories for cyclists in Slovenia as young as I was. It was a race with few laps on a three-kilometer circuit, but I kept going and won. In those two years, I always raced with older riders. Only when I was 11 did I start running with my age. Technically, he was too young to be there in those races. But I had no alternative ”, recalled the now winner of the Tour.



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