Following a successful end to his 2025 season with a record-equalling fifth Il Lombardia triumph, Tadej Pogačar has spoken about the toughest moments of his year, which occurred during the Tour de France.
The Slovenian stormed to a fourth title during the summer, winning in Paris by 4:24 from his long-time rival Jonas Vingegaard. He took four stage victories along the way and also won the mountain classification for a third time.
It may have been another dominant performance to add to many during his career, but, speaking to Slovenian website siol.net, he called the Tour "a necessary evil," adding that "every day was stressful" and revealing that at one point he had doubts about continuing due to knee pain.
"The Tour is really something special, tiring, long, full of stress... sometimes I just say that the Tour is a necessary evil for every team," Pogačar said.
"This year was the fastest Tour in history, if I'm not mistaken. Every day was stressful, an extremely demanding route in the first ten days, full of traps, loops, final climbs, it was hectic... And then came the second week, where the route was written to my skin, everything went great, like butter, and then came the last week.
"I really wanted another Alpine victory, especially in the stage on the Col de la Loze, to avenge the defeat from two years ago... but, to be honest, not everything went according to plan."
Pogačar said that problems with his knee came about after stage 16 up Mont Ventoux, where he finished fifth behind the breakaway as Valentin Paret-Peintre won.
He told siol.net that he thought he might have to leave the race as a result of the pain, but he indeed carried on, finishing second and third on the remaining mountain stages to the Col de la Loze and La Plagne and securing another yellow jersey.
"The day after the stage with the finish on Mont Ventoux, I had problems with my knee and I started to have doubts about whether I would be able to continue at all, whether I would be able to endure the queen stage," Pogačar said.
"And then, on the stage with the finish on La Plagne, on top of that, the weather was extremely bad. It was cold, and my body went on the defensive. I was holding back water because my body was in shock. I had had enough of everything; I really wasn't feeling my best.
"But I think any cyclist who has ever been on any Grand Tour knows that three weeks is no small feat. After the first week, you're already tired, and then you have two more weeks. I don't think anyone comes home rested, especially not after the Tour de France."
Following his Il Lombardia win – his 20th of the season to go with the Tour, the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Road World Championships, and others – Pogačar headed home to one of Slovenia's toughest climbs, Krvavec, to host the Pogi Challenge on Sunday.
In the event, amateur riders set off minutes ahead of the world's best, Pogačar. He then has to push past everyone to the top, with any rider who manages to hold off his charge coming out as the winner.
Pogačar overtook a mammoth 1,187 amateurs on the 14km climb, but one man managed to stick it out in front, finishing before the world champion to claim the glory.
British racer Andrew Feather, a lawyer as well as a four-time national hill-climb champion, was the man to do it. The 40-year-old started his effort five minutes in front of Pogačar and reached the top in a time of 44:15 while Pogačar completed the ascent in 40:44.
Feather reached the summit two minutes up on Pogačar, with an average of around 400 watts for his efforts.
"I kept looking over my shoulder thinking he was going to come up at some point, but he didn’t – he didn’t manage to catch me," Feather told Cycling Weekly after his triumph.
"There were literally thousands of people at the end… Everyone came out to watch him in action. He probably wanted to cross the line first, so I felt slightly guilty that I took that away from him.
"It just shows you that he’s a completely different class, but it’s amazing just to have that absolute direct comparison to the best rider at the moment in the world, maybe ever as well."
