Tadej Pogačar is one of the odds-on favourites for the elite men's road race at the UCI Road World Championships in Wollongong, Australia next weekend but was off the pace in Sunday's time trial. The Slovenian finished sixth behind surprise gold medalist Tobias Foss (Norway). As he refocuses on the road race, Pogačar is keeping an eye on the skies as bad weather may interfere with mid-week training runs.
"It's looking like really bad weather is coming," Pogačar said in a post-time trial mixed zone interview with CyclingProNet when asked about his plans to prepare for the road race.
The weather forecast is calling for heavy rain on Wednesday and Thursday with up to 35mm of rain expected for the day of the Mixed Relay, which Slovenia will not compete in. There is no racing on Thursday but the circuit portion of the course is open for training for three hours in the morning and that could affect riders' plans. The rain should move off for the weekend's elite road races.
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Pogačar, the winner of the Grand Prix de Montréal last week, is a favourite along with Belgium's Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel (Netherlands) and Julian Alaphilippe (France) for the road race but said he had room to improve in the time trial after finishing in sixth, 48 seconds slower than Foss.
"I'm happy with today's performance," Pogačar said. "It was a nice time trial. I gave it everything but for sure there are some things to improve. Every year I'm getting better with this stuff and I'm pretty happy with sixth place."
When pressed on what he can improve, the 23-year-old said, "Everything - pacing, cornering, going flat out and just the preparation. I did not make any mistakes but you can always do better. It motivates us for the next time."
After only a few days to overcome the many time zones covered since Montréal, Pogačar said that jet lag wasn't the problem.
"Today for sure there was no feeling of jet lag - you're too much focused on the race, so you forget about jet lag.
"The other days I was sleeping already in the afternoon so it's a bit strange but when you come to a race you forget about everything - you have full adrenaline your body adapts pretty fast actually."
The next week will include "some long training" and "some good recovery and full preparation for Sunday's race", he said.
He said the 266.9-kilometre race, which includes one long climb (Mount Keira, 473m) on the run-out from Helensburgh and an attritional 12 laps of the punchy, technical Wollongong circuit, "doesn't suit me the best" but expects it to be "a really tough race. I'm looking forward to being there on the start line with a strong team from Slovenia."
The team is missing some key riders like Primož Roglič and Matej Mohorič, but Pogačar is confident in the team of Jan Tratnik, Jan Polanc, Domen Novek, David Per and Jaka Primozic. "We may not be at the start with a full selection, but we still have six good riders. We hope for a good result."
