Mentally tired, less flamboyant in his attitudes and almost jaded despite an overwhelming victory, Tadej Pogacar dominated the Tour de France 2025 but without the usual plume which makes its legend. Its sports director at UAE Team Emirates-XRG, Joxean Fernández Matxin, confided in the Spanish media AS To return to the state of mind of the Slovenian and to the way of rekindling his motivation.
Tadej Pogacar won his fourth Tour de France In 2025 with a comfortable advance of more than four minutes on his dolphin Jonas Vingegaard. However, the last days of racing have left a strange taste: apart from the last stage in Montmartre, the Slovenian, usually so offensive, appeared to be mentally tired and almost jaded.
Behavior explained by its sports director, Joxean Fernández Matxin in the columns of AS: “He likes to be competitive. We had to defend and wait for the attacks, this defense is not very fun, neither for the spectator nor for him. Our character pushes us to attack, but when we are four minutes ahead in the general classification, we must also be coherent.” A management that contrasts with the image of an attacker Pogacar 80 km from the finish, but which also reflects a team in total control of the race.
“More boring” races? Hautacam’s psychological blow
The Spanish sports director of UAE Team Emirates-XRG Do not contradict those who consider that this edition has been able to appear less spectacular: “We are used to attacks 80 km from the finish, 50 km from the finish … Now, everything that involves waiting for the end seems boring. Why? Because it is these same runners who have given the impression that the race is hard from the start and who have accustomed us to it. Hautacam has had a really important psychological impact, of course time.”
Pogacar’s demonstration of force on Hautacam on the 12th step sealed the general classification of the big loop in the second week, forcing his team to lock the race rather than dynamiting as in the past.
Change the race program to relaunch the flame
To maintain the motivation of its leader, Matxin relies on variety and change of program from year to year: “Some years, he participated in Jaén, others in Paris-Nice or Tyrrhenian-Adriatic. After winning the Volta Catalunya, we motivated it with the classics. When Pogacar align with a race, no one expects him to lose, even on the Tour des Flanders. “
The sports director also suggests that the classics, more unpredictable and explosive, stimulate Tadej Pogacar more than the Tour de France, where domination sometimes crushes the dramaturgy: “The Tour of Flanders is perhaps more exciting, because you have to be in the right place at the right time, rather than waiting for a mountain attack.”