All the problems of Pogacar to win the Tour: “we thought he could quit”

What happens behind the scenes of teams during a grand tour often doesn't come to light until months or even years later. Aspects such as an illness, an injury, the tactics for a specific stage... that teams try to keep under wraps and that, once known, from the perspective of time, serve to explain many things seen in the race. Now, thanks to some statements from Tim Wellens to L'Équipe, we can learn about the problems Tadej Pogacar faced in achieving his fifth Tour de France.

Tim Wellens reveals that a knee injury almost left Tadej Pogacar without his 4th Tour de France

Often, grand tours become a kind of poker game among the top favorites. In a current cycling environment where the level is extremely even, any small detail can tip the balance towards one cyclist or another. This means that within teams, any incident, any minor illness, the real impact of a fall suffered days before, or simply that a certain cyclist had a bad night become genuine state secrets.

Something similar happened within the UAE Team Emirates-XRG team, as explained by Tim Wellens in an interview with the French newspaper L'Équipe, where he describes how a pain in Tadej Pogacar's knee that appeared during stage 17, a flat day ending in Valence that preceded the tremendous alpine stage of Col de La Loze, almost sent the Slovenian cyclist home.

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Wellens explained that Pogacar suddenly warned him, "Tim, we have a problem, my knee hurts a lot", to the point that he had to go down to the medical car during the stage for the Tour de France doctor to check it, and at the end of the stage, he was taken directly to the hospital where a scan revealed inflammation of the knee but, fortunately for the cyclist, no apparent injury.

An inflammation that perhaps was a consequence of the tremendous strain that Visma-Lease a Bike put on Pogacar with their aggressive tactics to defeat him and that, in light of Wellens' statements, almost had an effect. "You could tell his body wasn't well: he was swollen, he had gained weight. Seeing him arrive in Paris was a great relief. Everyone was wondering why he wasn't attacking, but now it makes sense. We were worried about him physically, but mentally he stayed strong", explained the Belgian cyclist.

Tim Wellens also spoke about the tremendous media pressure that Tadej Pogacar is under, which he himself explained after the Tour de France: "He has become a big star. If he has to stop to go to the bathroom during a race, he hides because people immediately rush to take pictures of him. You don't realize it, but he feels it 24 hours a day. Sometimes I see that he is fed up, but he handles it very well". In any case, Wellens, contrary to what has been rumored in recent months about the expiration date of Pogacar's cycling career, is very clear: "I think Tadej will keep racing for a long time because he really loves what he does."

In any case, fortunately for Tadej, the pain subsided, allowing him to remain competitive during the Alpine stages and even have enough spark to become one of the animators of the final stage in the streets of Paris, with the novel inclusion of the Olympic circuit and its ascents to Montmartre, where the Slovenian tried to find the perfect finish to his Tour de France with a victory in Paris that he could not achieve as he faced a fantastic Wout van Aert.