Van Gils saw Pogacar climbing like a beast at altitude: “And we really weren’t going slowly”

Tadej Pogacar is not taking part in the Tour Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes. The Slovenian will prepare for the Tour de France via the Tour of Switzerland, so it will still be a while before we see how good he is heading into the Tour. But Maxim Van Gils, who is returning from a serious injury, has already seen him at work and got his answer quickly.

In May, Van Gils was at altitude training camp in the Sierra Nevada. He was not alone there either: half the peloton seemed to be present. “You do not come across the other teams all that often,” he tells Het Laatste Nieuws. “We trained together once with Steff Cras, Pascal Eenkhoorn and Valentin Paret-Peintre from Soudal Quick-Step, and then you are all mixed in together, but other than that... Tadej passed us a few times, and he was going very fast.”

It was almost comical how quickly the world champion came by. “Even though we really were not riding slowly then, Tadej was going up the hill very quickly. At first we thought he was doing it to bluff and had hidden a few bends further on in the bushes. But at the top we saw him again, so it was indeed a normal climbing effort for him. I also thought he looked very thin.”

Van Gils himself is returning to the Tour Auvergne - Rhône-Alpes after months on the sidelines. The reason was a heavy crash in the Clásica Jaén: in the sprint for the podium places, he was forced into the barriers by Jan Christen (UAE Team Emirates-XRG). The result was a pelvic fracture for the Belgian from Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. His spring thus went completely to waste.

Now, almost four months after the crash, Van Gils is back. In the French stage race, he feels he is already at a good level. “But the level in the Dauphiné is always very high. In any other race, I would now dare to say: ‘I can already compete for the prizes.’ Except in the Dauphiné. Maybe it helps that I have barely raced at all this year and have extra freshness.”

The 26-year-old from Brasschaat joined the German team of Lotto Dstny in 2025, and would normally be in the Tour de France squad this year. He is supposed to be an important helper for team leaders Remco Evenepoel and Florian Lipowitz, but his crash in Spain has thrown those plans somewhat into doubt.

Will we see him at the start in Barcelona? “That will depend on this week. Our team has many strong riders and although the team management kept repeating over recent months that they are counting on me in the Tour, I have to show with good results that I am ready for it. If I come home in the Dauphiné every day with the also-rans, I can say for myself that it will be fine in July, but I do not think a plane ticket to Barcelona will land in my inbox.”