Tadej Pogačar to only race twice before Tour de France, four weeks away

Tadej Pogačar will only compete twice before this year’s Tour de France, which begins in just four weeks' time. 

The two-time race winner, who is recovering from a broken wrist suffered at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, will only take part in the Slovenian National Championships ahead of the event, riding the road race and the individual time trial on the last weekend of June. 

Pogačar was initially scheduled to start the Tour of Slovenia, but has scratched the race from his calendar, as he has been unable to train on the road in the past month. 

“I’m taking care every day,” he said in a press conference on Friday. “Every day I’m getting better, without any pain in my body and the wrist is getting better every day. I have more and more mobility.

“I’ve been training quite good until now - home trainer, running - I’m starting now this week on the road. My shape isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be after the rollers.

"Normally I really like to have a race before an important race. But ok, a Grand Tour is 21 stages, and sometimes it's good to be a little bit more fresh. I will do the National Championships, so two days of racing." 

After taking a treble of victories at the Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne, Pogačar crashed out of Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April, and has not raced since. 

The UAE Team Emirates rider is currently on an altitude camp in Sierra Nevada, Spain, where he will remain with his team-mates until 11 June. He will then travel to France to recon a few Tour stages, before undergoing another training camp in Sestriere, Italy. 

“Hopefully I will be 100% [for the Tour de France],” he said. “Maybe the wrist will not be at 100%, but I think the legs can be, because you don’t need your wrist to train your legs. I think we will see when the Tour comes, but I think I will enjoy it in any case.

“I think for the Tour maybe I will still need a soft brace around the wrist just for a bit of support. I hope that I get more or less mobility to go out of the saddle and sprinting before the Tour.” 

Pogačar posted on Instagram earlier this week to confirm that he had returned to open road training. “I’m a bit stupid and disobeying doctor’s orders,” he smiled in the press conference, “but I pushed the team, I pushed everybody, trying to go on the bike. I knew that I cannot put too much pressure on the scaphoid, on the hand.

“We will see next week after my scan If I have damaged the bone again, but I don’t think I did because I have no pain.”