Tadej Pogačar, the Vuelta and the art of being amazed

“Začudenje je simptom inteligence”. A phrase like so many others on a wall like so many others. It can be found a stone’s throw from Tivoli City Park in Ljubljana, in a narrow street a few hundred metres from the Slovenian capital’s Gallery of Modern Art. Translated, it reads something like this: “To be surprised is a sign of intelligence”.

At Tivoli City Park in Ljubljana, in front of Tivoli Castle, a children's cycling race used to finish until a few years ago. The race took place on a city circuit: ten laps through the streets of the city before the final two kilometres or so inside the park. One day seven years ago, three riders appeared amongst the avenues lined with chestnut trees. The winner was a young lad with a face full of spots who’d only got on his bike to make his father happy and who left it in the garage a year later, despite everyone saying he was a prodigy. Just behind him came a fair-haired lad whom nobody knew. He looked around, almost unable to believe he’d come second. Years later, he told a journalist that on that day he’d never expected to be among the leaders. “I was surprised. When I set off, I had just one goal: to finish the race. I hadn’t managed to train properly because I’d been so busy with schoolwork. I never thought I’d finish second. I was absolutely delighted.”

You can only be happy with second place when the disappointment of defeat is outweighed by the amazement at something unexpected. Tadej Pogačar was smiling that day, looking utterly incredulous. It was his second year racing. He’d got on a bike because his brother had done so before him and “I wanted to do everything he did. “Then he gave it up; luckily, I carried on,” he told siol.net. In his first year, things had gone badly. “The first race I rode was really tough: I came last, 40th out of 40 riders. Then, throughout the whole season, the best I managed was fifteenth, my best result,” he told CyclingTips. By the time he turned up under the chestnut trees at Mestni Park Tivoli, however, he’d already been pedalling away for over twelve months. “It was in my second year that I won my first race. It was from that day onwards that I really started to enjoy cycling.”

Tadej Pogačar is twenty years old and hasn’t stopped enjoying himself. “Cycling is a joy, the best thing I’ve ever experienced.” And he’s never stopped being amazed either. It happens to him often. It happened a year ago when he won the Tour de l’Avenir, a miniature Tour de France that used to be for amateurs and is now for under-25s: “How do I feel? Astonished. Of course it was my goal for the season, but I never expected to win. I’d prepared well, but I was just hoping to finish in the top five; winning the race took me by surprise,” he told Rouleur. It happened when he signed his first professional contract with UAE Team Emirates: "Who would ever have thought it could actually happen?" It has happened every time he’s won this year. At Fóia in the Volta ao Algarve. At the summit of Mount Baldy in the Tour of California. He finished both races top of the general classification. In his first year as a pro.

Tadej Pogačar has so far cut his teeth in short stage races. He gained experience at the Tour of the Basque Country, then in the Ardennes classics: the Amstel Gold Race, the Flèche Wallonne and Liège–Bastogne–Liège. He has raised his arms in victory twice and on both occasions taken home the leader’s jersey. He has always finished in the points. “Winning a stage isn’t really that important. The stages are raced one after the other, and day after day you mustn’t let yourself get dropped. You have to avoid losing ground and capitalise when you have the chance to gain it. It’s like cooking – you need to know the ingredients and the cooking times,” he told Slovenian television some time ago. And Tadej Pogačar enjoys being in the kitchen and, they say, he’s quite good at it.

The Slovenian is someone who, at the age of twenty, knows how to bide his time and think things through. Someone who, according to Neil Stephens (sports director of UAE Team Emirates), “has a surprising calm about him. He’s young, he’s ambitious, he knows where he can and must improve, and he does so day after day. It’s great to see such a young rider establish himself amongst the world’s best whilst remaining composed, as if this were the most natural thing in the world”. On the other hand, Pogačar is someone who prefers analysis to anxiety: “I don’t worry too much if I lose. It happens. In fact, it’s better; it helps me understand my limits and where I can improve”.

Tadej Pogačar will be competing in the Vuelta from Saturday. In his first three-week stage race, he will be supporting Sergio Henao, captain of UAE Team Emirates, or perhaps Fabio Aru, who is keen to get back to racing, to gauge where he stands and, above all, to see what sort of rider he can become. The road will decide. The very same road that has continued to amaze Pogačar for the past seven years. And who knows whether the fans will be just as amazed as he is.