By Shane Stokes
Irish fans of cycling are well used to seeing Tadej Pogačar enliven the TV coverage of the Tour de France, the big Classics and a host of other races.
However they almost saw him on these very roads, with the now-world number one initially scheduled to compete here six years ago. stickybottle has learned he was due to race the 2017 Rás Tailteann, but ultimately did not make the start.
“There was an Irish angle with Tadej before,” UAE Team Emirates media officer Luke Maguire told stickybottle as part of a feature about working alongside Pogačar.
“He was supposed to do the Rás in 2017. Andrej Hauptman, a sports director in the UAE team, brought a Slovenian team over to the Rás in those years. He had picked Tadej initially, he was all set to come, but he had school exams and he had to stay at home. So he almost did the Rás.”
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The ROG-Ljubljana squad had a relatively quiet campaign, although it did record three top ten results on stages. These were fifth on stage seven with Tilen Finkšt, eighth on stage four with Žiga Ručigaj and tenth on stage 7 with Žiga Jerman. The best placed-finisher overall was Matic Grošelj in 47th.
Had Pogačar turned up, things might have been different. The-then 18 year old took a host of strong results that year, including fifth overall and best young rider in the 2.1-ranked Tour of Slovenia, third overall in the 2.2 Tour de Hongrie, fourth in the Istarsko Proljece – Istrian Spring Trophy and seventh in the under 23 Giro di Lombardia.
He hadn’t yet hit the heights he would reach the following year in winning the Tour de l’Avenir, but could well have been a big factor in the Rás outcome.
It would also have given many Irish riders bragging rights about the week they competed against the future Tour de France champion.
Still, he might get here in the future. “He hasn't been to Ireland yet,” Maguire said. “So we will try to get him over at some point….”
We'll have a longer interview soon with Maguire about working with Pogačar, including his insider's view of the character of the double Tour winner.
