🎥 Tadej Pogacar felt "very sick" after the World Championships: " He had absolutely no energy left, was completely drained"

A good hour after the race, Pogacar did appear at the press conference as the third-place finisher, where IDLProCycling.com asked him how he was doing. "I felt very sick and had to go to the toilet, but now I feel much better than twenty minutes ago. Thanks for asking," said Pogacar, who really didn't feel well. "All I wanted to do was go to bed and do nothing. I had absolutely no energy left; I was completely drained after the race."

Pogacar secured a spot on the World Championship podium after a grueling Tour de France - in which he ultimately finished second behind Jonas Vingegaard - an impressive feat. He was part of an elite lead group but couldn't prevent Mathieu van der Poel from breaking away from it. Wout van Aert finished solo second, while Pogacar won the sprint for third place against Mads Pedersen.

After the race, Pogi was visibly spent. "Did I enjoy myself? Not really, no. This was one of the hardest races I have ever ridden," he was quoted as saying by Sporza. "I realized that Mathieu was too strong, but I still wanted to go for second place and tried to save as much energy as possible. That's why I didn't pursue full throttle and why I skipped a turn now and then. I also realized that I wasn't the strongest of the three, as I couldn't get away on the climbs. They were a bit too short for me."

Yet, Pogacar still managed to beat his fellow escapee Pedersen in a sprint, another remarkable performance from the all-rounder. "After such a day, I would have also granted him the podium, as he had worked hard for it. It wasn't really a sprint anymore. We were all dead tired. It was the sprint of the walking dead. It was truly insane. I enjoyed it until seventy kilometers from the end, then it was suffering to the finish."

For a serious chance at the world title, Pogacar would have preferred more real climbs and fewer turns. "The course was a bit too technical, and the climbs were also too short. Every lap was so explosive. In the first lap, we sprinted up every climb, every thirty seconds. In the end, I am happy with my third place."