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Tadej Pogacar, forward with his smile towards his third Tour de France

2022-06-20T10:35:03.516Z


The Spaniard Íñigo San Millán, coach of the Slovenian cyclist who has just won the Tour of Slovenia, details the preparation he has followed to achieve his third victory in the 'grande boucle'


Pogacar, left, overtakes Mohoric in Novo Mesto.JURE MAKOVEC (AFP)

Tadej Pogacar, 23, ascends a tough climb in the company of his teammate, a kind of older brother, Rafal Majka, 32. A splendid day.

A landscape of Heidi.

Mountains here and there.

Some fir trees scattered in the middle of very green meadows, and edelweiss flowers shine.

They flee.

The first.

200 meters from the finish line, Pogacar approaches his partner, pats her on the back and tells her that if they play by chance who wins the stage.

The Pole nods.

The Slovenian shows his fist, stone, and Majka smiles with an open hand, paper.

They hug and linked by the shoulder, Majka's wheel in front, they cross the finish line.

It happened on Saturday at the Tour of Slovenia, zero opposition, but, remembering last July, the ease with which Pogacar, and his little blonde lock mischievously going through the cracks of the helmet, his plume, won his second Tour, more than a cold sweat walked the back of the Jumbos of Primoz Roglic, the old Slovenian, who, after a barbecue on Monday, are gathered in the alpine heights of Tignes, not far away.

And they, and others who consider themselves rivals of the young Slovenian, even thought that a similar scene, so humiliating for all those who fight for victory, could also happen in Alpe d'Huez, for example, within less than a month, on the Tour.

More information

The cycling weekend, upset by the heat wave and casualties due to covid

And, to make matters worse, the heat wave that also hit Slovenia last week did not even seem to affect Pogacar, who has always been believed to be more of a cold man.

One less hope.

“Tadej, the truth is, he is so gifted that the physiological stress of the heat also tolerates him well”, explains the Spanish Íñigo San Millán, the coach of the Slovenian cyclist in the UAE team.

“He loves the cold, but as we saw in the first stage of Slovenia, with 33 degrees he blew up the race [and left with his Majka and, on this occasion, he worked the victory for his

older brother

and caretaker of him ].

Heat doesn't sit well with almost anyone, as all studies show it decreases performance, but those with more advanced physiology tolerate it better."

Artisanal strategies against the heat

The meteorologists anticipate that in mid-July a new heat wave will devastate France and the teams are preparing.

They fine-tune strategies already in place, such as the rapid supply of ice packs for cyclists to place on their necks, new forms of hydration, ice vests before starts and nylon socks filled with ice.

"I still remember years ago going to supermarkets and buying two dozen women's socks to ice," says San Millán.

“Still the best is the handmade.

Various fabrics for jerseys and shorts are being developed that are thermoregulatory, but it will take some time to get them on the market.”

The Tour of Slovenia – overall and three stages, but only one, the last one, with sporting value: a frenetic sprint on the cobblestones of Novo Mesto to defeat Matej Mohoric, the third Slovenian, the cyclist who frustrated him descending the Poggio of San Remo – and the heat are the last details of Pogacar's preparation for the Tour, which really began in January, with a concentration on the Alicante coast followed by the first days in the Sierra Nevada and ended a week ago with the concentration in Trepalle, in Livigno, at 2,300 meters in the Stelvio National Park, the last touch of height.

“He will arrive at the Tour with 24 days of competition [three one-week stage trials with victory in the Emirates, Tirreno and Slovenia, and several classics, with victory in the Strade Bianche and prominence in San Remo and Flanders].

A schedule similar to last year.

It worked well then and that is why we have repeated, and it has been seen again that Tadej is competitive at the highest level from the first to the last day”, says San Millán.

“Before, there was a lot of running, but little training.

Now it is important to train at altitude, as well as to be able to have several specific training blocks during the season to stimulate different metabolic adaptations that are difficult to control during competition.

This approach is key in modern cycling.”

“I needed the break”

What the scientist says in his own terms was summed up by the cyclist in his on Tuesday, the eve of the Tour of Slovenia, in the Nova Gorica square, in front of the Albergo Perla, the border hotel whose casino was a refuge for Friulian gamblers already in the times of Tito's Yugoslavia.

"I haven't run since April because I don't want to burn myself," said the cyclist.

“I am 23 years old and I could ride more days, and physically it is possible, but mentally, as I always go out to win, it is very hard.

I needed the rest.

I started in January to give it.

And I haven't set foot in the house for a month, in Monaco.

It hasn't just been the altitude, I've also trained for the five-stage tour of the Tour, two in the Pyrenees, two in the Alps and the Rocamadour time trial.

I had never climbed Galibier and Alpe d'Huez, and I thought that stage was tremendous, and also that of Hautacam,

“And not only that”, adds San Millán.

“At the end of April, before taking a few weeks off physically and mentally, the day after Liège, he was reconnoitring the Pavés stage in Lille.

In between, the wind tunnel and tests with new bicycle materials.

He is a professional through and through.”

This modern planning of a lot of training and little competition is only possible thanks to technology, to the revolution of watts, software and intelligence that allow to know almost to the second all the work that the cyclist does and how his body assimilates it both training and competing. .

The trainer tests him to set his FTP (functional threshold power), the watts he can move for an hour without fatigue, lactate.

And around that number, which last year was about 410 watts, 6.2 per kilo, at the lactic threshold, 6.1 millimoles, he designs the workouts.

With those values ​​he won the Tour.

"We'll see if the form of 2021 is enough for me to win this one, but it seems to me to be better, with less percentage of fat and more power, and psychologically stronger," says Pogacar.

"These numbers have evolved as expected," explains, hermetic, San Millán, who measures Pogacar's form, and how his performance capacity seems to continue to rise year after year, according to the unexpected earthquakes caused by the young Slovenian.

At the age of 20, in the Vuelta, it was his stage in Gredos;

in his first Tour, at 21, the matador Aubisque;

in the second, the great escape towards the Great Bornand.

“And this year, he didn't surprise me as much in the Strade or Tirreno, as in the Tour of Flanders, where he only mishandled the arrival with Van der Poel”, says San Millán.

“Honestly, since I started working with Tadej at the end of 2018, that is perhaps the only thing that has surprised me, since I did not expect that a rider in his first performance in a cobblestone classic would have such an ability to move as if he had made 20 years of classics.

The rest of the performances have never surprised me.

From day one I know Tadej's physiology and metabolism very well and what he is capable of.”

What hasn't changed, says San Millán, is the Slovenian's winning mentality, his love of risk, his lack of fear of failure.

"Pressure is necessary if you want to win races," says Pogacar.

"But I will always smile, I will go forward with my smile."

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Source: elparis

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