Daniel Oss said this, speaking about Pogacar after the Giro d’Italia experienced on the Eurosport bike. «What can I say… it was exciting! My yardstick is always whether kids like youin that case you hit the mark…”.
The Pogacar Tour was also the Children’s Tour, which Tadej made protagonists with a series of applause-inducing gestures. The water bottle taken by the masseur and given to a boy on Grappa. The high five and then the smile exchanged with another, who will never forget it (see the opening photo). Just as he won’t forget it a 13 year old boy, Simone Ponzani, who had the fortune of meeting the Slovenian at the start of the last stage of the Giro. What she did was try to describe her emotions and then sent them to us.
ROME – Sunday May 26th was the luckiest day of my life. In fact, at the start of the last stage of the Giro d’Italia, I managed to see Tadej Pogacar live. He’s the rider I’ve been supporting since I’ve been following cycling and I even managed to get a cap autographed by him as a gift. It was a unique experience, I just couldn’t believe it.
I also managed to take many photos, which I will certainly print as soon as I get the chance and frame them together with the hat. I think I was one of the few guys that day to have had this experience and to have seen a cycling champion and his entire team up close.
The pink socks
My father and I woke up early that morning to go and see the start of the last stage of the Giro, hoping to meet Pogacar as he exited the UAE Emirates bus. It was full of people waiting for Tadej to come out. Through the bus door you could barely see the socks, the shoes and part of the shorts, all pink and immediately the crowd called him to make him come down.
Obviously there were a lot of people in front of me, but I managed to squeeze in front of them so I could see Pogacar. But I never expected to see it so close. In fact I was in the journalists’ area, that is, in front of the runners.
Then going with my father towards the start we managed to take two selfies. One with Joxean Fernàndez Matxin, the sport manager of the UAE Team Emirates, and one with Matteo Trentin, rider of the Tudor team.
Footballer and cyclist
My name is Simone Ponzani, a 13 year old boy who plays football. Despite this, I am a fan of many sports but especially cycling. I own a racing bike with which both in winter and summer (much more often) I do rides with my father that are long enough for me, about 50 kilometres.
Obviously as an Italian I support Italian runners, but if Tadej Pogacar competes I will cheer only for him. I’ve been rooting for him since he proved to be one of the strongest youngsters, so around 2020, the year he won his first Tour de France. But already since he made his debut as a professional, that is in 2019, I understood that in a few years it would become a phenomenonor as the commentators say, an “exaterrestrial”.
Pogacar, in addition to being a very young cyclist (25 years old) who reflects many young people, he is also a person who has “a lot of heart”. He demonstrated this in the sixteenth stage of the Giro di Italia 2024 (21 May) when, after catching another rider, he went on to win the stage. And to that same cyclist, he gave a shirt and glasses. From that moment on, as soon as I think about him I want to ride a bike and I feel very lucky to be experiencing the pinnacle of his career.
Simone Ponzani
