When the crowds cheer, shout, and beg for him in the long hallways that form at each signing event, when they surround the UAE Emirates bus, when they even chase him in hotels lost in France, Tadej Pogacar seems overwhelmed. Like shy individuals, he doesn't quite know how to react to the fan phenomenon. One arm up, a half smile. He is just a rock star on a bike. There, the transformation, the gestures, the cunning, the relentlessness. The show.
In Nice, under the Mediterranean sun, far from the Parisian Arc de Triomphe, the Slovenian became a legend. The comparisons with cycling legends, the devoured records... The most repeated name is that of Marco Pantani, the last winner of the Giro-Tour double, 36 years ago. Only six more have achieved it (Coppi, Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault, Roche, and Indurain), but the most astonishing thing is not achieving it, but even imagining attempting it in modern cycling times, where progress is no longer based on kidneys and courage, where everything is dictated by science, watts, efforts, and rest. It is in the laboratories where Pogacar's reconquest has slowly been forged, a machinery that his director, Joxean Fernández Matxin, set in motion the day after, for the second consecutive year, Jonas Vingegaard prevented his pupil from winning the Grande Boucle.
"I lost one Tour because I made a mistake following the attacks of Roglic and Vingegaard [Galibier 2022], the other because I raced it with a half-broken wrist and a splint," Tadej recounted at the top of Isola 2000 after securing his third Tour and equaling Thijs (1913, 1914, 1920), Bobet (1953 to 1955), and Greg LeMond (1986, 1989, and 1990). "I am back to being my old self. And even better." But how did he do it?
This is what Matxin calls "the backstage, everything behind the scenes." And, in the case of the genius from Komenda, it is based on three pillars: aerodynamics, nutrition, and rehabilitation. All three, like that Joseba Elguezabal (the Basque masseur) who assists him at every finish line, after every effort, with a Spanish accent.
After Vingegaard's second challenge, with a breakdown like never seen before on the Col de la Loze, Tadej's end of the season was not as successful as usual. He could barely add Il Lombardia to his list of victories, the last monument of the year. Already that October, during the team's first pre-stage in Abu Dhabi, Matxin presented him with an ambitious roadmap towards reconquest: Giro and Tour. "Everything is analyzed. We couldn't settle. We had to control where the losses had been and minimize them. And increase our strengths. And for that, sacrifices had to be made," explains the UAE director to EL MUNDO.
After vacationing with his girlfriend Urska Zigar, Pogacar got down to work. By January, he was already working at the Valencia velodrome in El Puig because aerodynamics were one of the identified weak points. "Last year, we lost 1:38 in the time trial [Combloux], these are things that sting but make you wake up." The man tasked with improving Pogacar's aerodynamics is David Herrero, a former Euskaltel cyclist, now one of the most prestigious biomechanics experts in the peloton. He not only studied Tadej's position on the time trial bike in the wind tunnel and track tests but went further. "The goal was to be aerodynamic but comfortable in the position. Pogacar used to be much straighter, more flexible before. Now he is more tucked in at moments where he used to be more upright. All supported by Big Data. If you go 20 seconds with a much more penetrating airflow...," explains Matxin. "We studied even the position in the group and the composition and location of the team, how we use the draft, knowing that at that moment you are recovering and possibly your rival is not, he is spending more and you less," he adds.
Herrero, who was a pupil of Matxin at Saunier Duval, analyzes even "the friction of the bike material, the thigh against the saddle, a hub, a chain... The less friction, the better performance." Pogacar applied all of that. During warm-ups and cool-downs at the Giro, he used the time trial bike. During the entire month he spent concentrated in the Maritime Alps before the Tour, there were days when he rode the climbs in a tucked position. Days when, before setting off, he completed gentle roller rides at 40 degrees, a thermal training to improve one of his acknowledged weaknesses, effort under heat.
The next step in Pogacar's improvement is nutrition. And there, the man is Gorka Pérez, the Spanish nutritionist of UAE, who previously mentioned in EL MUNDO how he measured "even the grams of rice in sushi" for his cyclists. "He assesses the caloric expenditure, the kilojoule expenditure of each stage to analyze protein, carbohydrates, all the nutrition perfectly tailored to each one. With an App he developed, he knows exactly what they have spent and what they need to eat," says Matxin. "The chef creates a customized menu for each rider. No one goes hungry. In many cases, they can't even finish the diet, but they are convinced that in detail, that is what they need to recover, the fuel they have spent."
Another major change in Pogacar's training was the arrival in October of Sevillian Javier Sola replacing Íñigo San Millán (who joined Athletic Bilbao) as the director of the coaching group. Matxin also highlights another less visible aspect of the champion's environment. This is Víctor Moreno, a rehabilitation specialist from the Miguel Hernández University in Elche. With a significant feature that accelerates the recovery by "50%": the professor goes directly to the residences of UAE cyclists. "I don't think this exists in any other sport. When someone has an injury or a fall, having to travel to a rehabilitation center or a hospital is tough psychologically. Víctor goes to the cyclists' homes so that they recover from the injury faster in their environment, with their family. Last year, he was in Monaco with Tadej's wrist fracture," reveals Matxin.
All of that, the desire for revenge and Pogacar's innate talent. A cocktail for cycling history.