Rog & Pog, on winning and losing the Tour de France

As the Tour de France gets underway today I thought it might be interesting to pull a couple of extracts from chats I had with Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic, the Slovenian duo who finished first and second in last year’s race - after an 11th hour uphill Mexican standoff

Tadej Pogacar - the you pretender

ST; You lost time early on in the Tour through strong cross-winds; how did you keep morale and pull that back when Jumbo Visma were so powerful?

TP; Luckily that day we managed to minimise the time loss, it could have been much worse. I knew the legs were good and that I could make back time, but I also knew I would have to go on the attack - which, fortunately comes naturally to me. 

ST; In that last ITT you did the impossible. Why did you ride without devices, and can you tell me about how you rode it and handles the information side of things on the road?

TP; Actually I rode with a bike computer for the first part only. When you race everyday looking at your Watts and numbers you get a really good idea of what you can do just on feel alone. Also it was the last big push of the race, the last 5km, so I wasn't worried about measuring my effort too much – I just going full gas. It also helped to keep the bike as light as possible (having no devices).

 ST; How did you feel beating Roglic, it was a huge day for Slovenia?

TP; I was delighted to win. I couldn't believe it. It was a huge day for Slovenian sport. To be honest I felt a little sorry for Primoz but he will come back to battle again I'm sure. 

Primoz Roglic, the high flyer

ST; You were absolutely amazing in the Tour, and nobody expected you to lose the race in that final time trial. Did you know things were going wrong, and what went through your mind as it played out?

PR; Not really (I didn’t know it was going wrong), I think it was a big surprise for all of us. We didn’t expect that this would happen, but in the end it did and we cannot change it; we have to go on.

You’re disappointed, and for sure I was wishing to win the Tour, but in the end I was quite, quite far away from it. I was disappointed and crying, I wanted to stop cycling, all these kind of things were going through my head.

But, as the time went but, you realise it’s your problem and that you have to go on, and then there’s a new day – new opportunities.

I just went from race to race, it’s cycling. It doesn’t really matter how strong you are one day, the next day you have to fight again for it. I was looking at it like that, and I had it within myself that I wanted to win something more this year, and it went really good in the end.

ST; With Pogacar beating you, and a Slovenian 1-2 at the Tour it must have been a bitter sweet and surreal moment?

PR; Yeah, I’m not one to judge, but now, thinking back it was just amazing – no matter how you look at it, 2 Slovenians at the top of the Tour de France podium.