Paul Rouget, media365: published on Friday May 02, 2025 at 2:00 p.m.
Still amazing during the classics, Tadej Pogacar impresses the whole peloton, but also his teammates from UAE Team Emirates. Like Juan Ayuso, for whom Slovenian is “the Messi of cycling”.
Tadej Pogacar did not only win a pretty jackpot during the classics. Winner of the Strade Bianche, the Tour des Flandres, La Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, but also second in Paris-Roubaix, for its very first participation, of the Amstel Gold Race, and third of Milan-San Remo, he still impressed the whole peloton, and even Lance Armstrong. So much so that the Slovenian would even create “a kind of psychosis” in his opponents …
Third in Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Irishman Ben Healy (EF Education-Easypost) estimates that Pogacar is “on another planet”. And the teammates of the triple winner of the Tour de France within the UAE Team Emirates think more or less the same … This is the case of the young Spaniard Juan Ayuso, interviewed by Wieler Revue before the start of the Tour of Italy, scheduled next Friday.
“Everything is a little easier for him”
A GIRO in which he wants to “become a better climber, to reduce the gap with guys like Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel and Primoz Roglic. But why does he not quote his leader? “I did not mention Pogacar, because if I say that I want to be better than him, we will be entitled to a media circus,” he jokes afterwards.
Before dwelling a little on “Pogi”, which is “the undisputed leader of the team. Everything is a little easier for him, he still admits, laughing. He is simply the best runner in the world. Everything seems easy with him. Friends outside cycling ask me if it is normal to be so strong. No, this is not normal. »»
Catalan then dares a football comparison: “What it does is like when Lionel Messi dribbles everyone as if there was no one. With Messi, everything seems easy. And in cycling, Tadej is our Messi. »Difficult to be more complimentary …
