Tadej Pogacar:
“Cannibal is a bad word, I’m not like that!”
Cycling superstar Tadej Pogacar took his sixth stage win of the Tour de France 2024 in yesterday's time trial. The Slovenian obliterated several of legend Merckx's records in the Giro-Tour double.
Tadej Pogacar collects records like stamps. In 2020, the Slovenian became the second youngest winner of the Tour de France at 21, and yesterday he became the youngest triple winner at 25: "I can't describe how happy I am after two hard years."
The climber obliterated two of Eddy Merckx's records in the process. During his Giro-Tour double in 1970, the Belgian wore the leader's jersey for 37 days in the two Grand Tours and won a total of eleven stages. "Pogi" was only the eighth rider to win both national tours in one year. He took 39 jerseys of honor and twelve stage wins: "Winning the Tour is a different level. And the double on top of that is another level."
"I don't like cannibals, cannibals eat their own kind"
The highest-paid professional cyclist (12 million euros) is often compared to a "cannibal". Pogacar doesn't like this nickname at all: "I don't like cannibals, cannibals eat their own kind. It's a bad word, I'm not like that." For sentimental reasons, many cycling fans would have liked the beaten defending champion Jonas Vingegaard to win the stage on the final Alpine stage. But Pogacar knew no mercy: "You don't give away stages to your direct and toughest rival. You are paid to win. You have to deliver. And if you don't do that, it's no good."
In view of Mark Cavendish's Tour record of 35 stage wins, Tadej can't afford any gifts. He is driven by a single motivation: "I want to be the best in history." After his third Tour victory, he wants to aim for the rest: a victory at the Vuelta, Olympic gold and the world champion's rainbow jersey. The cycling giant even dares to win Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix one day: "But I would have to change my program for Roubaix to be in good shape there."
Pogacar has shown the courage to make changes this year. Neo-trainer Javier Sola completely changed the preparation: "We expect Tadej to ride at a completely new level." For German doping expert Fritz Sörgel, banned substances are not involved: "At the moment, I can't say that there is any substance that could be used. There is none."
This article has been automatically translated,
read the original article here.
Kommentare
Willkommen in unserer Community! Eingehende Beiträge werden geprüft und anschließend veröffentlicht. Bitte achten Sie auf Einhaltung unserer Netiquette und AGB. Für ausführliche Diskussionen steht Ihnen ebenso das krone.at-Forum zur Verfügung. Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.
User-Beiträge geben nicht notwendigerweise die Meinung des Betreibers/der Redaktion bzw. von Krone Multimedia (KMM) wieder. In diesem Sinne distanziert sich die Redaktion/der Betreiber von den Inhalten in diesem Diskussionsforum. KMM behält sich insbesondere vor, gegen geltendes Recht verstoßende, den guten Sitten oder der Netiquette widersprechende bzw. dem Ansehen von KMM zuwiderlaufende Beiträge zu löschen, diesbezüglichen Schadenersatz gegenüber dem betreffenden User geltend zu machen, die Nutzer-Daten zu Zwecken der Rechtsverfolgung zu verwenden und strafrechtlich relevante Beiträge zur Anzeige zu bringen (siehe auch AGB). Hier können Sie das Community-Team via unserer Melde- und Abhilfestelle kontaktieren.