Pogacar makes his intentions clear in Switzerland: 'We'll see if we're really ready for the Tour'

Tadej Pogacar is back! The world champion from UAE Team Emirates-XRG returns to racing at the Tour de Suisse on Wednesday, and this week we'll see how the Slovenian is shaping up ahead of the Tour de France. If his comments at Tuesday's team presentation are anything to go by, Pogi won't be waiting long to make his mark.

Paris-Roubaix is the only race so far this year where Pogacar lined up and didn't win. Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Tour de Romandie — all fell to the world champion. After more than a month without racing, the UAE star is now back.

So what has he been doing in that time? "We had a team training camp and trained pretty hard there. We had a good rhythm every day," he said on Tuesday in front of the CyclingPro camera. And now he can't wait to race again. "Now we're here in Switzerland, where tomorrow [Wednesday] we'll test the legs."

Because, as Pogacar himself knows: "We'll see if we're really ready for the Tour, or whether we need to look for something extra in the training sessions after. Normally this should already be the moment to be really in good shape, but we'll see." The feeling is good, at least, as Pogi indicated. "I can't complain."

We'll see the world champion in action in Switzerland across five days. "It's a bit of a shame that it's not nine days, like it used to be, with real mountain stages as well," Pogacar said on the subject. "It's a bit different now, but I still think it'll be a lot of fun. It'll be a great race in terms of legs and speed — also perfect for testing the legs."

And there's an added bonus. "Sometimes it's also good that it's only five days, because then you can recover faster afterwards. We'll see how it goes." Starting with the opening stage. "It has quite a difficult finale, with a short, punchy climb. A lot of big names can do something there, so there'll be a lot of attacking, especially if someone feels good."

Expect Pogacar himself to be in the mix from the off on Wednesday. "We have a good team here to follow along at the very least, and maybe we'll try something ourselves. We'll try to go for the stage."