Tadej Pogačar: 'You never just let Remco ride away, but the situation was different this time'

That makes four. Tadej Pogačar won Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday to add another Monument to an already packed palmares. About an hour after his victory, the Slovenian from UAE Team Emirates-XRG sat down with the world's media in Liège before heading to Switzerland for his next race.

"Lots of things happened," he said, still catching his breath in a side room of the Helmo Campus. It had started early — Remco Evenepoel escaping in a massive group just minutes after the flag dropped, leaving Pogačar marooned in the bunch.

"At the beginning I was at the back and suddenly there was a break with Remco in it," Pogačar recalled. Was he nervous? "I'm going to be honest — I was a little bit nervous at first, and we tried to close the gap straight away."

The message from the team car, however, was to sit tight. "After 20 minutes we realised it wasn't that bad to let them go, because with such big groups the cooperation is never that great. But I was still a little afraid that Remco might manage to escape and ride on alone."

"We kept things under control thanks to Vegard and Rune," Pogačar said, paying tribute to Stake Laengen and Herregodts. "Decathlon helped us later too. You never just let Remco ride away — but this time the situation was different."

Everything came together for Pogačar in the finale. His first real attack came on the Redoute. "I couldn't really tell you why La Redoute suits me so well," he said when asked. "I think it's a good place to attack because it's a very hard climb — and it comes after five hours of racing."

On this occasion, though, Paul Seixas refused to let him go. "On La Redoute, I was really going deep, and I could see that he was a little bit on the elastic — but over the top he came next to me, and I was like, 'OK, really impressed.' Then he was also pulling quite strong all the way, and we opened up a big gap on the chasers, which was good for us."

The plan began to shift. "Between La Redoute and the Roche-aux-Faucons, I was already thinking about the sprint and how I should approach it — that it wasn't like Roubaix with Wout, and that he was going to humiliate me in a sprint. So I had this in mind. But I wanted to try on the last climb, and I succeeded — so no worries about being outsprinted. It was tough to crack Paul in the end, but I'm happy to win."

"I'm impressed and astonished by how good Paul is. Hats off to him," Pogačar told the international media. "I have nothing but praise for that young man — for his incredible results at the start of this season and for how mature he is. I don't think there are many riders right now who are stronger than him."

"The fact that he performs at such a high level at just 19 motivates everyone to keep trying to improve. He's 19, and the best age for us riders is usually 26 or 28." Pogačar himself broke through young — but there was a rare note of candour about what lies ahead.

"I'm sure it's going to get harder for me to win every year. I've been doing this for a while now and I'm not getting any younger. It's a matter of time before my performances start to decline." He paused, then softened the thought. "But I feel good on the bike and in training, and I appreciate the time I spend with my teammates more and more every year."