The struggle of being Tadej Pogacar

That fleeting, solitary look, so similar and yet so different from his racing attitude, racing ahead of everyone and alone, wasn't the expression of fatigue. We were mistaken. We thought it was the expression of a man who had pushed himself to the limit of his abilities, who was redefining the limits of cycling talent. It wasn't.

Tadej Pogacar 's joyful, passionate eyes had begun to cloud with indifference in the spring. They had darkened in the summer, as he looked around and saw nothing but emptiness, a distance between himself and the others . On the podiums of the 2025 Tour de France awards ceremony, stage after stage, the Slovenian champion's face had lost color, his smile had narrowed. That man receiving awards, dressed in yellow and red polka dots , looked less like a champion than a cashier in an empty provincial supermarket on a summer Sunday. He seemed to be saying: "What the hell am I doing here? What's all this enthusiasm about? Can't you see I'm getting on my nerves?"

“I'm already counting down the years until I retire,” said Tadej Pogacar . He made this clear a few days after the end of the Grande Boucle, and he reiterated it at the end of the Komenda Criterium, where he was born. “I started winning early; a high-level sporting career doesn't last long. I only have a few years to enjoy the level I'm at now,” he added.

It's legitimate for a runner to start thinking about when his athletic career will end while still running. Just as it's legitimate to think that winning won't last forever.

What's surprising isn't Tadej Pogacar 's words, it's his gaze. The gaze of someone who still enjoys cycling but feels trapped because he's starting to lose the fun of riding in a group. It's the gaze of a boy who, having achieved what he thought was his dream, begins to truly look around and realizes that everything around him isn't what he wanted. Because he just wanted to pedal, he just wanted to race in the big races, to experience firsthand what his beloved children had experienced, raced, and sometimes won.

It's as if Tadej Pogačar has realized that the freedom that cycling can offer is being stolen by cycling , crushed between calculations and watts, in weeks away from where you want to be. It's as if Tadej Pogačar has realized that adulthood is the strangulation of childhood enthusiasm. And that the joy of pedaling for the sole purpose of pedaling has been swallowed up by too many schedules, too many plans, and too much attention. In short, by something meaningless.

Tadej Pogačar is experiencing a moment of discouragement. A moment devoid of goals, because it's not true that winning is the only thing that matters in sport. Losing, sometimes, can be healthier. It gives you the chance to feel small again and, in doing so, allows you to put a human dimension to the problems you perceive. Tadej Pogačar needs an opponent capable of slapping him (in cycling). It would prolong his career and undoubtedly make him feel more alive.

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