Tadej Pogačar adds World Championships and Giro d'Italia to his wish list but is not done with the Tour de France
The Slovenian says he's still hungry to win at the Tour despite his dominance over the last year
Tadej Pogačar has said that his ambition is to add the world title and the Giro d'Italia to his win list in the coming years, but still wants to continue riding the Tour de France.
Pogačar, who has become the first rider in history to win two Monuments, the Tour, and an Olympic medal in the same year, recently ended his season with his second Monument win at Il Lombardia, where he beat Italian Fausto Masnada (Deceuninck - Quick-Step).
It has been another superb season for the Slovenian 23-year-old as he successfully defended his Tour title as well as adding Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Tirreno-Adriatico to his palmarès.
In a video by Gazzetta dello Sport at the Trento Festival, Pogačar said: "I want to win the world champion jersey. It's the most beautiful jersey you can have. I like the idea to wear it, but winning it is one of the most difficult things you can do. I'll think to compete a lot in worlds, trying to win it."
Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) podiumed five times at the Worlds before claiming the rainbow jersey in Innsbruck, 2018. Pogačar will be hoping he can get it a bit sooner than that.
He then turned his attention to the Giro, a race that does, on occasion, visit his home nation of Slovenia.
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"The maglia rosa, it's another beautiful jersey in cycling," Pogačar said. "I don't know when I'll race Giro, you should ask [my sports director Mauro] Gianetti, but I think in the future I'll be at the start.
"It's a race I like a lot, sometimes it goes in Slovenia. Now you can see it on TV and people get enthusiasm."
But Pogačar is a likely candidate to potentially break the all-time winning record of the Tour, which is currently sat at five victories after Lance Armstrong's seven were chalked off after it was revealed he was doping.
But, Pogačar has not mentioned the record yet with just two wins, but he is not done with the French Grand Tour.
"The Tour de France is special for me," he added. "It's the first race in which I became interested when I started to race, as you could watch only that on Slovenian TV. It's a dream. I have 14 yellow jerseys but they aren't enough. They mean you are the yellow jersey and you did something special."
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Hi, I'm one of Cycling Weekly's content writers for the web team responsible for writing stories on racing, tech, updating evergreen pages as well as the weekly email newsletter. Proud Yorkshireman from the UK's answer to Flanders, Calderdale, go check out the cobbled climbs!
I started watching cycling back in 2010, before all the hype around London 2012 and Bradley Wiggins at the Tour de France. In fact, it was Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck's battle in the fog up the Tourmalet on stage 17 of the Tour de France.
It took me a few more years to get into the journalism side of things, but I had a good idea I wanted to get into cycling journalism by the end of year nine at school and started doing voluntary work soon after. This got me a chance to go to the London Six Days, Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of Britain to name a few before eventually joining Eurosport's online team while I was at uni, where I studied journalism. Eurosport gave me the opportunity to work at the world championships in Harrogate back in the awful weather.
After various bar jobs, I managed to get my way into Cycling Weekly in late February of 2020 where I mostly write about racing and everything around that as it's what I specialise in but don't be surprised to see my name on other news stories.
When not writing stories for the site, I don't really switch off my cycling side as I watch every race that is televised as well as being a rider myself and a regular user of the game Pro Cycling Manager. Maybe too regular.
My bike is a well used Specialized Tarmac SL4 when out on my local roads back in West Yorkshire as well as in northern Hampshire with the hills and mountains being my preferred terrain.
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