Pogacar is a cycling genius and one of the best riders of his generation. His secret lies in a rather incongruous drink.
As Slovenian prodigy Tadej Pogacar discovered the Giro d’Italia for the first time in his career, he literally crushed the competition by winning by a wide margin, almost 10 minutes ahead of second-placed Daniel Felipe Martinez. The double winner of the Tour de France seems to be on another planet than his direct competitors.
This year, Pogacar will attempt for the first time to double the Tour de France and the Giro, with the ambition of winning both three-week events. A real feat, which only seven riders in history have achieved. The last one was Marco Pantani, in 1998. Before him, Indurain did it in 1992 and 1993, as did Bernard Hinault in 1982 and 1985, or Eddy Merckx in 1970 and 1972.
To achieve this performance, the Slovenian can count on some surprising help. At the Tour of Lombardy last October, Tadej Pogacar revealed that he had been able to count on a strange drink to save him from a physical failure. In the Sigma Sport Café Ride show, he explained that he had felt cramps during the transalpine event and thought he would lose his title on the Monument. “I knew I could go down with a bit of a head start but climbing with a cramp, that was not possible,” he revealed.
That was without counting on the miracle cure from the UAE team. “They were able to give me a salty drink with vinegar. It really helps me. There’s also cucumber juice. It helps me a lot. The electrolytes and the salt work,” says the rider. In any case, this unexpected combination allowed him to regain his strength and win the Tour of Lombardy for the third time in a row. The 25-year-old rider explained that this is not the first time he has resorted to this miracle drink to avoid hunger pangs.
Tadej Pogacar is definitely an amazing rider, who does not experience the race in the same way as his competitors in the peloton. During the last Tour of Catalonia, he had given the slip to the rest of the riders to hide in a bush and observe the reaction of the other cyclists.
This 2024 season, which has started in a thunderous manner for the Slovenian, could be historic if he manages to outpace the competition in both the Giro and the Tour de France, with a few days later, the road race of the Olympic Games in Paris. For this, his famous vinegar-salt-cucumber juice preparation could well help him avoid a failure.