📸 Chasing Pogacar: Meet the dog who tried to outsprint the World Champion

On his Instagram page, Pogacar shared footage of the dog, joyfully running alongside him. The "Happy doggo," as Pogi affectionately called his four-legged companion, managed to keep pace for several moments. That the dog eventually had to give up isn't surprising—Pogacar wasn’t on a casual training ride, as evidenced by the 650 watts he was pushing. Whether the dog earned a selfie at the summit, as the young riders did during his previous training, remains unclear.

17-year-old cycling talents Quinten Muys and Jenthe Verstraete also tried to match Pogacar’s pace before the end of the year, but just before the summit, they had to let go of the world champion, who was in full swing and broke the record on the immensely popular training climb, Col de Rates. “I managed to stay in Pogacar’s wheel for another two kilometers. I was pushing 480 to 490 watts,” Muys said at the time. Later, U23 star Paul Seixas tried to break the record with the help of a lead-out, but he fell short by a whopping forty seconds.

Pogacar wasn’t the only one to receive unexpected company during his winter training. Jonas Vingegaard (and his Visma | Lease a Bike teammate Wilco Kelderman) also had an amateur cyclist tagging along during their training camp in Spain. YouTuber Artem Shcherbyna managed to ask a few lighthearted questions to the two-time Tour de France winner before Vingegaard began an intense sprint session. Unsurprisingly, the influencer found it extremely challenging to keep up at that point.