One less competitor for Mathieu van der Poel: Tour winner Tadej Pogacar not going to the Olympic Games after all

Tadej Pogacar will not be participating in the Olympic Games in Paris after all. The Slovenian Tour winner was supposed to ride the road race, but has decided not to participate. The Slovenian Olympic Committee announced the news on Monday. According to the committee, Pogacar is too tired to start in the road race. The Slovenian rode the Tour de France in recent weeks and participated in the Giro d’Italia earlier this year.

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Pogacar was supposed to skip the time trial at the Games anyway and focus solely on the road race, but he will not be travelling to Paris at all. Domen Novak, a teammate at UAE Team Emirates, will take Pogacar’s place.

It is unclear whether the fact that Pogacar’s partner, the cyclist Urska Zigart, was not selected for the Games also plays a role. She could have competed for Slovenia. Pogacar will now focus on the World Championships in September, where he hopes to win the rainbow jersey.

Pogacar won the Tour de France for the third time on Sunday. The Slovenian won no less than six stages and was crowned the overall winner with a six-minute and seventeen-second lead over number two Jonas Vingegaard.

The Olympic road race is scheduled for August 3. Mathieu van der Poel, Daan Hoole and Dylan van Baarle will compete for the Netherlands. The hilly course has a total of 273 kilometers and 2,800 meters of elevation to and from Paris.

Pogacar has indeed been selected for the Olympic Games in Paris. The winner of the Tour de France is in the four-man selection of Slovenia, together with Matej Mohoric , Jan Tratnik and Luka Mezgec . There was no place for his fiancée Zigart in the women’s race, which caused quite a stir in the cycling world. Both Zigart, who is the reigning champion on the road and in the time trial, and Pogacar spoke of a strange selection policy.

The troubles are said to have left a deeper impression on Pogacar. Bicisport reports that it even makes him doubt his own participation in the Games. Pogacar’s manager, Johnny Carera, gave some more explanation. “We will make a decision in the coming days. The World Cup is certain, that is his other big goal. And I think the same can be said for Lombardy.”

“But I wouldn’t guarantee his presence at the Olympics 100 percent. Given his status, he should be in the running to win, but we are talking about a unique race that will be held in 10 days,” Carera said.

Tour winner Tadej Pogacar will not participate in the Olympic Games in Paris after all. This was announced by the Slovenian Olympic team on social media. Pogacar was supposed to participate in the road race next Saturday.

The official story is that the 25-year-old Pogacar is too tired from the Tour de France. However, something else may be going on. The Slovenian Cycling Federation did not select his fiancée Urska Zigart for the Games, even though she is Slovenian road and time trial champion. Pogacar previously expressed his displeasure about this decision on social media. Tomorrow, Pogacar, who won the Tour with a great display of power, will be in action in the Surhuisterveen criterium.

Domen Novak, teammate of Pogacar at UAE Team Emirates, will take his place. Matej Mohoric, Jan Tratnik and Luka Mezgec are the other three riders for Slovenia. According to the Slovenian Olympic Committee, the winner of the Tour de France is too tired to participate in the road race in Paris. The Slovenian national coach of the cycling team, Uros Murn, even speaks in a statement of “extreme fatigue” for Pogacar. There was little sign of this in the Tour de France last week, with victories in the last three stages.

The plan was for Pogacar to only participate in the road race and skip the time trial, but the 25-year-old Slovenian will not travel to Paris at all. Pogacar was previously ‘not amused’ about the non-selection of his partner and rider Urska Zigart for Paris. Pogacar had expressed his surprise that she had not been selected. Zigart won both the Slovenian road race and the time trial in June. “I need rest after the Tour and I don’t know what I’m going to do next,” Pogacar said on Sunday after the Tour in Nice. “I want to rest and spend some time with my girlfriend.”

Pogacar is still at the start of the Surhuisterveen professional round in Friesland on Tuesday evening, one of the criteriums after the Tour de France. On Wednesday evening, Pogacar will be honored in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana.

Pogacar will then focus on the World Cycling Championships in Switzerland. These will take place in and around Zurich at the end of September. The men’s road race will close the event on Sunday 29 September. Pogacar will also not participate in the Vuelta a España, which will be held from 17 August to 8 September.

In the footsteps of Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche?

With his Giro-Tour double, Pogacar is the tenth rider to win two Grand Tours in the same year, after Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Giovanni Battaglin, Miguel Indurain, Marco Pantani, Alberto Contador and Chris Froome. There has never been a rider who has won the Giro, Tour and Vuelta in the same year. At the end of September, Pogacar can become the third rider to become world champion in the same year after the Giro and Tour. Eddy Merckx did this in 1974, the Irishman Stephen Roche in 1987. Annemiek van Vleuten did this in 2022 as the first and so far only female cyclist.

In his interview after the Tour de France, in which he won six stages, Pogacar said on Sunday that he dreams of riding in Mathieu van der Poel’s rainbow jersey . “Mathieu van der Poel looks good in the rainbow jersey, but I would like to win that too,” Pogacar said after he also won the time trial from his hometown of Monaco to Nice on the final day of the Tour. Pogacar previously won the Tour in 2020 and 2021, after which Jonas Vingegaard proved to be the strongest in France in 2022 and 2023.

For Van der Poel, the absence of Pogacar during the road race at the Olympic Games is good news. Together with Pogacar, Van der Poel was one of the absolute top favorites for gold.