Sometimes, a mother knows, and the same applies even if you’re Tadej Pogačar. Despite the victories that have seemed to go on and on this season – or perhaps because of it – the all-conquering Slovenian’s mum Marjeta recognises with clear eyes exactly how exhausted he is.
“This year, I saw that he was really, really tired. Exhausted, perhaps,” she said in an interview with French outlet Le Parisien. “And I said to myself: now, I can understand if he stops cycling.”
It wasn’t just the mental pressure and the physical effort, she explained – sometimes it was the roadside crowds.
At the end of the Tour, Pogačar said: “I’m at this point in my career that if I do burnout I would be happy with what I achieved. To be serious, burnouts happen in sport, in a lot of sport, mental and physical burnout. We do train a lot, I think cyclists are a bit too obsessed with training, and we always try our hardest. Everyone wants to train more and more.
Her son rarely opens up to her entirely about such things, Marjeta Pogačar said – “he never complains, he’s not like that”, she says. But sometimes, she says, she almost feels his pain for him.
“And me, on the other hand, my shoulder hurt a lot, as if I’d fallen… Maybe he wasn’t in pain because I took his pain. That’s what mothers feel for their children.”
It’s mid-October now, and in theory Pogačar should be looking forward to putting his feet up and taking a well-earned rest. But commercial commitments will make that difficult, his mother says.
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