Can you train for the Tour de France in your kitchen? Tadej Pogacar did.
Tadej Pogacar, who won his second straight Tour de France in 2021, has seen his motto “Never give up” put to the test this year. (Christophe Ena/AP)
By Peter McDonnell
June 27, 2023 at 5:41 a.m. EDT
This was shaping up to be a historic year for Tadej Pogacar. The 24-year-old Slovenian is familiar with the unprecedented, having won his second Tour de France in 2021 to become the youngest cyclist to do so. But after opening the 2023 season with an unheard-of 10 victories in his first 18 starts, plus two overall wins in stage races, Pogacar had cycling fans asking not just whether he was the sport’s strongest rider but whether he was capable of being its best ever.
In March, Pogacar outdueled Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard, who had bumped him from the top of the podium at last year’s Tour, in the eight-stage Paris Nice race, reestablishing himself as the overwhelming favorite to win this year’s Tour. In early April, he won three consecutive major one-day races, beating riders who had built their entire calendars around snagging one of the victories.
Then came a bump in the road — quite literally. On April 23, on a descent in the hilly Liege-Bastogne-Liege race through Belgium, fellow cyclist Mikkel Honore hit a pothole at 50 mph and crashed in front of Pogacar, who could not avoid it and was thrown off his bike. Honoré had cuts and a concussion, Pogacar a broken left wrist.
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Later that day, a photo on social media showed Pogacar smiling in a hospital gown and flashing a peace sign with his bandaged hand. Doctors said his fractured scaphoid bone would take six weeks to heal. He wouldn’t be able to get back on the road until June. Suddenly, the question was no longer whether Pogacar could win this year’s Tour, which begins Saturday in Bilbao, Spain, but rather whether he would be able to compete at all.
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The injury might have detoured an attempt at legacy-building — or it may define it. A week after the crash, Pogacar hooked his bike up to an indoor trainer in his kitchen in Monaco. Cuing up Slovenian rap in his ear buds, he climbed on. Unable to bear weight on his wrist, all he could do was pedal, and pedal he did.
“It’s been an unconventional preparation,” he said. “Most days I was doing double sessions, one in the morning for an hour or two and another in the afternoon. It’s intense, but that’s what it takes.”
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Even in a sport defined by grueling tests, Pogacar has demonstrated remarkable resilience. His first coach, Miha Koncilija, noticed it when Pogacar was a kid at the local cycling club. “He’s a fighter,” Koncilija said.
At races, his parents are known to bring a big flag with the motto, “Never quit trying and never give up.”
“It sounds cliché,” Pogacar acknowledged, “but I like it.”
So while his competitors were outside logging daily long rides in the mountains, Pogacar spent more than a month in his kitchen, riding a stationary trainer alone and repeating the mantra, “Never give up.”
Strength through peace
Pogacar grew up in Komenda, a Slovenian village nestled in mountains that would become his training ground. He’s the third of four children of Marjeta, a French teacher, and Mirko, who ran the production crew at a chair factory and now manages Pogacar’s former cycling team.
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Tadej and his older brother, Tilen, were unicycle prodigies until their unicycles were stolen, which led both to give two wheels a try. By age 9, Tadej had followed Tilen’s path, joining the local Rog Ljubljana cycling club, which loaned him a tiny green racing bike.
Most of the boys at the club were older, but Koncilija, in a recent interview with French news network BFM TV, recalled that Tadej could keep up, especially on climbs. But Koncilija said what made him special, even at a young age, was his mental strength.
“I don’t waste much energy on stress,” Pogacar said. “I think by nature I am quite a calm person, and maybe it helps me to see things more clearly when things are hard.”
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As a teenager, Pogacar climbed the ranks against increasingly stronger competition, cementing his rise by winning the Tour de l’Avenir, a stage race featuring the world’s best amateur riders who are under 23. Pogacar was 19. Later that year he turned pro with Team UAE and began beating veteran riders handily. Even as a rookie in the pro peloton, with his signature spikes of boyish blond hair sticking out of his helmet, Pogacar rode with relaxed confidence.
In 2020, Pogacar debuted at the Tour de France and clinched the win on Stage 20, an individual time trial up a mountain, by beating elder compatriot, Primoz Roglic. After a second Tour de France win the following year, he was indisputably cycling’s new reference point.
Then last year, in his quest for a third straight Tour title, a rival emerged.
Kings of the mountains
For the first eight days of the 2022 Tour, Pogacar appeared unbeatable. He won back-to-back uphill stages, but the 21-stage Tour requires saving as much energy as possible and strategically attacking.
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Looming in the middle of Stage 11 was the infamously long Col du Galibier climb. On the approach, a swarm of yellow-helmeted racers from Jumbo-Visma, the strongest team in the race, surrounded Pogacar, ambushing him with attacks and isolating him from his teammates. Then when the road tilted up, Jumbo-Visma’s two leaders took turns attacking.
“I can’t remember a Tour de France like this,” NBC commentator Phil Liggett said on the broadcast. “They are hitting each other with everything they’ve got.”
Again and again, they attacked, sprinting uphill and forcing Pogacar to chase, a two-on-one match at 7,000 feet.
“Tadej Pogacar is up to the measure so far,” said Liggett’s co-commentator, Bob Roll. “But how many of these can he withstand?”
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As if answering the question, Pogacar made a hang-loose gesture to the TV cameras, suggesting he was “all good.” But when the day’s final climb began, the Col du Granon, he looked ragged. Vingegaard, a steely young climber on Jumbo-Visma, attacked, and this time, Pogacar had no answer. Vingegaard, who had finished second to Pogacar in 2021, won the stage and wrested away the yellow jersey.
Afterward, Pogacar conceded, “Maybe I was a bit short on fuel.”
Some critics seemed to take it harder than he did, claiming he had raced too brashly, wasting precious energy chasing down every attack. Regardless, when Vingegaard went on to win the Tour, cycling had a rivalry in full bloom.
After Pogacar’s April crash, oddsmakers bumped him from being this year’s favorite, replacing him with Vingegaard.
Pursuit of history
Doctors cleared Pogacar to resume outdoor riding this month. Wearing a wrist brace, he rediscovered the joy of riding outside, posting photos of his outings on social media.
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“The range of experiences you can have is amazing,” he said. “The nature, the places you see.”
Throughout his experience he has drawn inspiration and motivation from his fiancée, Urska Zigart, a pro cyclist who rides for Jayco AlUla.
“We understand what each other is going through, and we can offer support,” he said. “We spur each other on.”
Back on the road training means back on the path toward history. In addition to his two Tour victories, Pogacar has won three of cycling’s five “monument” races. If he wins the other two one day, he would become one of only two riders to sweep the monuments and win the Tour de France. The other is Belgium’s Eddy Merckx, who dominated cycling in the 1960s and ’70s with hundreds of victories, including five Tours.
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A marvel of versatility, endurance and power, Merckx sees the same qualities in Pogacar, saying, “He can win everything.”
Merckx may remain the sport’s standard-bearer for now, but Pogacar is in pursuit, especially if he can outrace Vingegaard and the rest of the peloton after training with a broken wrist in his kitchen for cycling’s biggest race.
“Naturally, I didn’t want it to happen like that,” Pogacar said, “b
ut I was due a long break, and I guess the injury just forced me to rest a bit more.”
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