UAE Tour 2025, Pogacar on season debut: “A dream to race with this jersey”

Rome, 16 February 2025 - The last appearance on the road of the 2024 had coincided, as usual, with a victory, that of Tour of Lombardy which had sealed the best season of his career, for many perhaps even unrepeatable: Tadej pogacar will try to disprove the sceptics by starting his journey in the best possible way 2025, starting fromUAE Tours, at the start Monday 17 February.  

Pogacar's statements

Even though in the meantime a lot of time has passed 128 days since his last race, the Slovenian is already eager to send a signal to his rivals and perhaps even to himself, also to best honor that rainbow jersey he has long pursued. "For me, being world champion is a dream, as is being able to wear this jersey every day and be able to compete with it. It's even more beautiful to come to my team's home country and be able to show it off." In fact, at home UAE Team Emirates XRG the reasons in theUAE Tours there are always so many: then, when you see it again at the start pogacar, there is no need to even charge further.

Yet, even the '98 class is human and, as such, has some fragility: especially when you are returning from a long winter full of unknowns. "Every year I arrive at the start of the season with some doubts about my physical preparation. I hope that this year my condition will allow me to compete at very high levels. We must cross our fingers that everything goes well as last season, but what is certain is that as long as I am charged and eager to return to compete I know that I will give my best".

In fact, what emerges from the stories of friends, colleagues and rivals and also from some content offered to fans via their social media is that pogacar he is also competitive in training: imagine in the home race of theUAE Team Emirates XRG, which also opens his perhaps most complicated season, the one in which he is called to the never banal task of reconfirming himself. "The time trial will certainly be important, but I think it will make little difference, perhaps just a handful of seconds. Since it is not long, I think the biggest differences will be made with the fans if there is wind".

Trentin's statements

  Among the friends of the Slovenian champion there is Matteo Trentin, which to the microphones of Wieler Revue revealed some behind the scenes details that confirm exactly what is said about the strongest. "I have seen some champions of the past who sometimes faced training not at their best: this is not the case of pogacar. It is not surprising that I only like to train with him when I am really fit. Apart from that, I like to go out with him, but usually he drops me on the climbs and that is where my possible anecdotes end. All I can say is that he is really strong and professional, in the race as well as in training, and that he is also good at working on his weak points. In the last fifty years and probably also in the next fifty we have never seen other runners like him, the only one who can come close to Eddy Merckx".

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