Could Tadej Pogacar enter the cyclocross universe? LThe International Cycling Union has called up the world number 1hoping that the two-wheeled beacon will be able to try its hand at this specialty, also for promotional purposes in view of the hoped-for inclusion in the Winter Olympics program.
Peter van den Abeele, director of sports operations at the UCIhe spoke about it to Nieuwsblad: “We must not forget that Tadej was an interpreter of cyclocross races in the past. It’s his team that doesn’t allow him to do it, otherwise he would have already gone back to do some racing…“.
Statements that would have convinced the organizers of some events to invite the Slovenian champion. The organizers of the Superprestige stage were the ones to test the waters significantly (prestigious circuit together with the X20 Trofee, events parallel to the World Cup) which will be staged on Saturday 3 January in Gullegem (Belgium).
Manager Stijn Tant spoke about it at Sporza: “We were looking for some important names for our race, considering that Mathieu van der Poel won’t be coming to us and Wout van Aert and Thibau Nys won’t be there either. We were looking for a really strong one. And so we realized that the description of the runner we needed was that of Tadej Pogacar“.
The head organizer continued: “At that point we said to ourselves that if you don’t try, you definitely can’t be satisfied… We started making a lot of phone calls and also spoke to his agent, Alex Carera. But in the end they told us no, because Pogacar he is away for a training period and because our race would not fit into the calendar they had planned for him at this time of the year“Will anything change in the near future? The risk of injury is always real and those aiming to win the Tour de France and win the Classics cannot afford missteps.
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