'A crazy experience' - Kristoff on the meeting that sparked Pogacar's surprise first Tour win
During his stint in the Domestique Hotseat, Alexander Kristoff has described how a young Tadej Pogacar surpassed his own team's expectations on his Tour de France debut in 2020.
Alexander Kristoff wore the first yellow jersey of the 2020 Tour de France after winning the opening stage in Nice, but nobody in his UAE Team Emirates squad believed they would carry the jersey to Paris.
Although their line-up included a young debutant called Tadej Pogacar, the team set out more in hope than expectation. His podium finish at the previous year’s Vuelta a España underlined his talent, but there was an acceptance that the Tour was a different sort of challenge. Pogacar and the team’s ambitions were only scaled upwards after a meeting on the second rest day.
“In 2020, our first goal was top five because he had finished top three in the Vuelta the year before,” Kristoff said on the Domestique Hotseat. “When he was in second or third place on the rest day, we had a meeting, and we said, ‘If he is third now, the goal should be first. And if he ends up third, it’s still two places better than fifth.’”
Pogacar would go on to snatch the yellow jersey from his compatriot Primož Roglič with a devastating display in the stage 20 time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles. “We adjusted our goal halfway through the Tour to try to win it,” Kristoff said. “It was a really crazy experience to be a part of. It was a really nice Tour and a really good memory.”
Kristoff acknowledged, however, that Pogacar’s quality had been apparent from the moment he linked up with UAE Team Emirates as a neo-pro in 2019.
“I didn’t expect him to win so quickly, but we saw how strong he was,” Kristoff said. “In training camps, we saw how he smashed all the other climbers. We had many strong climbers at UAE when I was there, but in training they had no chance against this young Slovenian guy, so we knew he was a really big talent.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Kristoff also discussed his sprint rivalries during his career, citing Mark Cavendish, Marcel Kittel and Peter Sagan as his toughest opponents. “I had many good rivals. To say the best rivals, I would say Sagan, Cavendish and Kittel – but they beat me all the time, so I was not super happy when I saw them on the start line, because I knew it would be difficult to win.”
When Kristoff produced a towering display at his home World Championships in Bergen in 2017, he was denied the rainbow jersey by Sagan, who edged him out in a tight sprint.
“That was the year I could have done it,” Kristoff said. “I was so close, I think I lost it by 3-5cm, so it’s very narrow. You lose with so little after 260k, such a small margin… It’s a pity, but that’s life. I really would have loved to have been world champion. I didn’t manage it, but I was still European champion and second in the Worlds, I had third place in the Olympics, so I had a medal in all those championships, which is still a nice thing to have.”
Watch the full Domestique Hotseat episode with Alexander Kristoff 👇
