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Tadej Pogačar and his “insane” and “suicidal” raid to win the UCI road cycling world title continues to reverberate days after the stunning race.
But just how crazy and instinctual was the move with 100km to go?
At first glance, it looked like Pogačar raced on pure instinct.
He quickly read the lay of the land, jumped to cover a potentially dangerous move with four laps to go, sensed an opportunity to keep going, and then went all-in to attack alone and win with 50km to go.
But when you peel back the layers, there was a lot more going on right in plain sight to reveal that not everything about Pogačar’s mind-bending blitz was based solely on guts and glory.
Taking a closer look at the key moves from Slovenia leading up to the race-fracturing surge when Pogačar attacked with four laps to go suggests there was nothing accidental about it at all.
And considering that the race was contested without race radio, Slovenia must have hashed out at the very least a broad stroke of a plan, if not a very specific one.
Across the decisive moments of Sunday’s wild and thrilling race, Pogačar and his Slovenian teammates were racing as if they knew exactly what they were doing.
Let’s take a deeper look:
Setting up the move: Tratnik bridges across
None of the post-race comments from Slovenian riders or Pogačar himself reveal that the tactic that won Sunday was exactly the one that they had planned to execute.
Yet the team was clearly laying out the pieces for a Pogačar acceleration in the closing laps.
Everyone knew Pogačar was going to attack, the big question was when.
Things quickly turned to a boil Sunday when a dozen riders bridged across to an early break featuring none other than Jan Tratnik, arguably Slovenia’s strongest helper in the race.
The first person Pogi hugged after the finish was Jan Tratnik. Loved to see that. #Zurich2024 pic.twitter.com/TzGUZGoYll
— Mihai Simion (@faustocoppi60) September 29, 2024
The veteran followed the wheels of Jay Vine (Australia) and others to perfectly cover the move with about 130km remaining and be up the road to wait for Pogačar.
Like everyone else in the race, Tratnik was racing without race radio. So he clearly had orders to cover any major moves once the race hit the final circuits.
There was no way of knowing when and where the action would commence, but Tratnik played the first card for Slovenia by being right where he needed to be.
Novak and Roglič tee up Pogačar
As the main bunch swept through the start/finish line with four laps to go, Slovenia positioned Pogačar perfectly near the front of the bunch.
So far, textbook-perfect tactics by Slovenia to protect their team captain in good position in the main bunch and have your strongest helper up the road covering the break.
What happens next is revealing.
Domen Novak, one of Pogačar’s UAE teammates and among his most loyal helpers, drove hard to the front of the main group going into the base of the short but steep climb at Zürichbergstraase.
Primož Roglič then took a very short but pointed acceleration just as Pogačar sprung clear of the main pack. A few tried to hold his wheel, including Team USA’s Quinn Simmons.
Planned or accidental?
Perhaps a bit of both.
Yet it was obvious that Slovenia was intent on setting up Pogačar for a move. The only question was when, and Pogačar answered that with trademark panache with just about 100km to go.
Tratnik sits up to tow Pogačar across
Even more interesting is how Tratnik — who was up the road covering the early breakaway — sat up and waited for Pogačar on the grinding Witikon climb.
Without race radio, how would he have known Pogačar was attacking the lead group?
Tratnik revealed in an interview he heard Pogačar attacked from a passing TV motorcycle.
Indeed, racing as if he was following team tactics, Tratnik waited and then towed Pogačar across to the baker’s dozen of riders splintered across the road.
Tratnik then went straight to the front of the remains of the break and started pulling.
There was no hesitation, doubting or waiting for instructions from Pogačar to suggest that this was suddenly something unexpected or wholly improvised.
Of course, Tratnik is a veteran pro, and will immediately know what to do when he’s in that situation, but it’s also likely that all these scenarios were at least thoroughly game-planned before the race started.
The only real question Sunday wasn’t if, but rather when Pogačar would jump.
Just how insane was Pogačar’s 100km attack at worlds?https://t.co/WG9wRQzrwO
— Velo (@velovelovelo__) October 1, 2024
The fact that Slovenia as a team set him up perfectly ahead of his surge and then had a key teammate waiting up the road goes a long way to suggest that Pogačar’s ploy wasn’t completely left to a spur-of-the-moment impulse.
Perhaps the Pogačar move came a lap or so sooner than even he might have expected, but once it did happen, everyone within the Slovenian team knew exactly what to do.
Finding an ally in Sivakov
Tratnik continued to drive the Pogačar group all the way through the start of lap 3 and led Pogačar onto the base of the next passage up the Zürichbergstraase.
Pogačar attacked again, dropping everyone in the breakaway group.
Kevin Vermaerke bravely tried to follow the wheel, but Pogačar wisely sat up and waited for France’s Pavel Sivakov, the only rider still within reach of the Slovenian at the top of the climb.
Sivakov, of course, is also Pogačar’s trade-team teammate at UAE Team Emirates.
The old days of trade team pacts and back-room deals at road worlds are largely a page from the past, and it’s all but certain that this part of the puzzle certainly wasn’t planned.
Providence turned Pogačar’s way, however, when he found a friendly wheel in Sivakov to race with him.
With French captain Julian Alaphilippe crashing out earlier in the race, Sivakov had a green light to keep riding. And though he didn’t take too many turns — or more likely couldn’t — he definitely helped pace Pogačar over the next 30km or so.
And there’s no way Sivakov would want to go to the UAE team camp in December if he had sat on Pogačar’s wheel for 80km Sunday only to see him get reeled in and lose the world title.
With just under two laps to go, Pogačar then popped Sivakov with 50km to go, and the rest is history.
Attack early and exploit the chaos
In his wake, the race descended into chaos after Belgium burned its riders, leaving an elite group of mostly isolated favorites to attack and counter-attack each other.
That was precisely the type of scenario that Slovenia would be trying to create after provoking the chaos of Pogačar’s long-distance raid.
Perhaps the timing and exact lap of when all this went down might not have been set in stone, but it was clear that Slovenia had a very clear tactical plan for the race.
The team put the pieces into motion well ahead of Pogačar’s eventual attack and then executed perfectly when the race blew up.
“… to reduce Pogacar to a soup of numbers and chemicals is really the narrowest and most boring way of appreciating him; the most boring way of appreciating sport.” This is well worth a read, as always, by Jonathan Liewhttps://t.co/KGzUsj0JHp
— Peter Cossins (@petercossins) October 1, 2024
So much goes into racing these days — with nutrition, feeding, pacing and power — that the suggestion that his attack was purely instinctual misses the mark.
Pogačar is a generational talent, but it’s hard to imagine him uncorking this attack without some good data and preparation to confirm that it was at least possible.
Slovenia and Pogačar wouldn’t be able to control what was happening behind them, but the team’s tactic set up Pogačar perfectly to control his own destiny alone at the front.
Blowing up his rivals’ playbook
Pogačar’s attack succeeded at two levels.
First, it put him in pole position to win uncontested at the line. And second, it sowed chaos and discontent in his rearview mirror.
By all accounts after the race, Van der Poel, Evenepoel and the other favorites admitted the move caught them off-guard.
Slovenia’s early aggression put all their rivals on the defensive and took them out of their comfort zone, even if Evenepoel would later call the move “insane.”
And Pogačar knows exactly how to manage his efforts when he’s at the front of a big race in a perfectly gauged solo effort.
Even when the gap dwindled to about 40 seconds with 15km to go, the race was still his to win because there was no concerted chase behind.
Pogačar’s surprise attack put the favorites on the back foot, and when the final-lap attacks came, everyone was already on the limit.
The closing circuit saw attacks coming in fits and starts, with ever more desperate surges and counterattacks, accelerations and decelerations.
As the Belgian national coach suggested, Evenepoel was not on his best day.
The ultimate compliment for Tadej
️ L’Equipe
Getty Images
________
#Zurich2024 pic.twitter.com/NnuWJ3Yban— Road Code (@RoadCode) September 30, 2024
All of that helped Pogačar, and the only sliver of a doubt was would he have the legs to hang on against gusting headwinds on the grinding middle part of the last loop.
Well, of course he did.
What he did Sunday was something spectacular, rule-breaking, extraordinary, historical, thrilling, and, yes, extremely gutsy.
But there was nothing accidental, suicidal, or reckless about it at all.
The peloton just entered the new Pogačar paradigm.
