Pogačar Almost Dropped OUT of the 2025 Tour de France

Pogačar article:
https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/i-started-to-have-doubts-about-continuing-tadej-pogacar-reveals-that-a-knee-injury-almost-ruined-his-tour-de-france/

Merchandise, event info, and more: https://hornercyclingfoundation.com

Follow us on Strava:
Chris: https://www.strava.com/athletes/670982?oq=chris%20ho
Garrett: https://www.strava.com/athletes/135875030

Arma Products: https://armasport.com
Use code “horner20” at checkout

Support the channel: https://www.patreon.com/chrishorner

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/hornerakg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hornerakg

Filmed and edited by Garrett Horner
Garrett’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/garrett.horner
Garrett’s TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@garrett.horner?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc
Garrett’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCFh0qOM-Z5R-wQNqR3ydWyQ

Welcome to Beyond the Coverage. I’m Chris her. In today’s episode, I want to take you guys back to the 25 tour to France because there was some headline news made out from Todd Pagotch where he talked about having some knee pain. Now, that explains a ton of stuff that we saw tactically where Todd Pagotch was a little bit muted on stages 18 and 19 of the 25 to France. I can remember after the 25 to France with Tad Pagotch spectacular win. Remember, he won four times. But even in the third week when he was a little bit muted for those mountain stages, I could remember many commenters saying, “Ah, he’s getting bored. He’s getting tired out here. He doesn’t want to be racing his bike anymore. This might be the last time that Teddy Pagotcha races on this form.” But now we see with the headline news here from TD Paga from a couple days ago that really it was a knee injury at the 25 to France. We look at the article, we read it that it came on after stage 16 Mont Vonu. After that stage finished, he said he started having some knee injuries and that’s when we started seeing the writer, the Slovenian from UAE team Emirates being a little bit more down, a little bit more calm in the interviews. We also know he had a little bit of the sniffles and stuff going on there where maybe got a little bit of congestion up in the head and stuff, but that knee injury would explain a ton. Guys, if we take you back into stage 11, Tad Pagotch crashed into stage 11 just at the finish. Remember when he over overlapped wheels of the Uno X rider, slid out to the left side, hit the island there, jumped back up, got on his bike, and started pedaling. Well, that was stage 11. Now, I’m not saying that caused a problem. I don’t even know which knee he had problems with. But when you start looking at crashes like stage 11, if you’re hitting the hip hard, it sets the alignment off on the bike. Next thing you know, it starts pulling the muscles differently and you have one knee yanking one way, another knee yanking the other way. You got massive thighs powers there. Power going on the pedals. Every pedal stroke, thousands upon thousands of thousands of upon thousands of pedal strokes throughout each stage of a tort, right? Then we start seeing the knee pain come in. Now, we know from this article that Todd’s talking about possibly not even finishing the 25 to France. It could have ruined his victory there. then it would have gone to Jonas Venigo. Now we start thinking if he drops out of the Tour to France and he goes to Yonis. Now all of a sudden you have three Torance wins from Yonas Venigo and you got three from Tad Pagotch. So they’re even again and the discussion starts rolling about who is the better riders again. Okay, Pokey won a ton of stuff, all the classics, all that stuff. He would add the knee injury as the reason for leaving abandoning the 25 Tour to France. But nonetheless, I see it all the time. I saw it throughout both of the grand tour victories at the tour to France from Yonas Vineo when he won in 22 and he won in 23 where everyone said Jonas was the best writer in the world. I remember working for NBC. Christian Vandervefeld said live on the air that he would take Yonas Veno on his team. I asked them live on air would you sign Jonas Veno? Because they kept telling me, everyone at NBC at Peacock there kept telling me how Jonas Vigo was the best writer in the world. Todd Pagotch is the second best writer. Jonas has to be the best. And I pinned down Christian there live on the air. And he said, I would not take Todd Pagotaa. I’ll take Jonas V. You go as my only pick if that’s the budget I have. I was like, you’re like the guy who traded Babe Ruth back in the day. Well, now if we take you in the 25 tour to France, that small little knee injury if it cost him the tour to France, there’d be people saying, “Well, Yonas won the tour to France in 2025.” I told you guys in 2025, Jonas didn’t have a spectacular season. He has never been his best. Those were my exact words. But now, if Taté had dropped out, there would be commenters, many commenters, telling me, “Ah, Yonas is the best. He’s a three-time tour to France winner. He just got done winning.” and I’d have to explain to you that there or explain to some, not to all of you, that there is a knee problem and that would cause a writer to drop in form. So, you got to give some adjustments when you’re setting up writers on your list of favorites, your first page list. You got to give some adjustments for crashes, for injuries, and those kind of things that come into play to a professional athletes life throughout the season. Now, I love the article, though. I love how Todd Pagotchar is honest about the knee injury later after it comes out and I feel for him. In 2013 when I was racing the Balta Espa I had a behind the knee issue happened on my left knee. You can see it taped up in that 2013 Balter where I have tape behind it where my wife was taping it up for me. She literally came into the team bus the next stage and started taping my knee up and the team staff was going berserk bringing a woman up into the team bus at a grand tour while I’m racing for the race leaders jersey red jersey there at the Balt Spa. They couldn’t believe I was bringing my wife in the bus. I said I don’t have time to explain it to you. I need my wife to tape my knee up. So you let you think about that where stage eight I I felt the knee injury to begin with and I started racing crazy tactics at the finish of stage eight so I could try to win the stage because I didn’t think I was going to start nine and even on the summit finish of nine. It was a short summit finish that went in super powerful super steep. Once we came into that town, I backed off the throttle because I knew if I went too hard up that final climb, aka Todd Pagotch, stage 18 and 19, where Ben Ben Okconor won stage 18 and our endsman won stage 19 because Pogy did what? He raced wisely. He backed off the throttle. This is the more educated adult experience now that Todd Pagotcha is coming into where if you cannot get rid of Yonas Vigo right away, you do not want to lose time to Yonas Vigo and those were the interviews that we saw from Todd Bagotcher where he said he had to race and protect the GC instead of being aggressive. That means that when we see him in the interviews afterwards, especially after stage 18 and 19, it’s cold, it’s miserable, it’s wet, his knee’s been bothering him. He didn’t get to win. He didn’t get to dominate the race. So, he’s coming into this press after the stages and he looks a little bit down. He says, “Oh, it’s been a hard three weeks. Everybody’s tired like this, but what we’re seeing is a tad pagotch in a little bit of pain.” Now remember live dur during the butterfly effect I told you guys no I don’t think it’s morale I think he’s just playing it safe. So I wasn’t wrong in saying that he’s playing it safe but what it really is now is the knee injury and it would explain everything. Now one other thing I want to bring up for sure when we see the article again is that Tadia Pagot talks about taking on water basically. So what the body does whenever it goes into trauma it always gains weight. I have gone into the hospital. I remember crashing 2014 while riding for lampray getting hit in the tunnel which basically ended my career and I was in the emergency room. I was just out training in Leo around Lake Ko there and I crashed and I was stuck in the hospital the emergency room the you the the emergency room and I had a private room for about five days. So I was in intensive care unit for about three and another two or three days in a private room. I didn’t eat anything guys. I mean, they’re barely able to feed me. The first few days, I’m not eating anything. The next few days, I’m just putting in little bits and soup and toast and stuff like that. And I come out of that after a week long stay there in Leo at the hospital there. I come out of there gaining like seven, eight pounds. It was ridiculous. You come out and remember, I was getting ready for the Jurro Diet in 2014. And when I left, I knew I wasn’t doing the Gerald, but immediately as a professional athlete, you’re thinking, “Okay, there’s no Gerald, but I’m going to the torto fronts.” And you get out of the hospital afterwards and you get on the scale and you’re 7, 8, 9, 10 pounds heavy and you haven’t eaten anything. So, the body just absorbs everything when you go into a trauma mode. And that’s what Todd Pagot is talking about when he has that extra water weight that he’s talking about in the interview there. What happens is the knee and any kind of injury to the body and it could have started after that stage 11 crash where instead of losing weight throughout the tortos as you progress into the second week and deep into the third week of the to France is that you’ve gained a maybe a kilo or a half a kilo instead of losing a half a kilo or a kilo throughout the tour to France. Now, when I was riding for a stunt at Tora California 2009, I crashed extremely hard on my left knee and then I was taking painkillers throughout the race to make it through the finish line. Now, I’ve always said, and I’ve talked about this many times here on our channel here with Garrett and I, when we’re talking about the having to take some medication to get through races, I was taking traumadol. In those days, it was legal to take traumadol. And what was happening along with the injury to the knee, the painkillers, if you’re taking an excessive amount of them, and I was taking an excessive amount of them in order to be able to pedal every thousand pedal revolutions throughout each of the stages of the Tour of California, it was helping me to stay on my bike, but it was not helping me to perform. What was happening is I was gaining weight. I could visibly see the weight gain stage after stage after stage. And I remember coming into the San Diego stage where we were finishing up Mount Palomar, finish going over the top of and finishing in Rancho. And I remember saying that morning to my teammates, when we get on Mount Palomar and I’m looking over at my team leaders, when I’m looking over at Lance Armstrong or Levi Liheimer, I’m telling those guys, do not wait for me on Mount Palomar. My form has dropped stage by stage by stage. And it was all caused from water weight that’s that’s been taken on from the knee injury. And I can assume a lot of weight was taken on from the painkillers that I was using aggressively to go through all those stages so I can get to the finish. But what was happening by the time to California had finished, I’d put on at least five pounds. And so that’s what we had saw again from Todd Pagotch and what he’s talking about in his interviews from the injury. I don’t know if he was taking any medications. I’m not saying he was, but there’s plenty of legal medications that you can take. And whenever you’re taking medications, you got to assume that you’re going to have some water weight retention that’s coming on from that medication too. So that’s what we had experienced in 2025 where now it’s become very clear after we saw Todd Pagotch win the 25 tour to France, after we saw him just get done finishing winning Tour of Lombardi in the men’s road world championships. Lombardi after back-to back victories, breaking records there, he is fantastic. So, we know from that interview along with the victories that we’ve seen from Tidy Pagot at the end of the 25 season that the Slovenian is not done. So, you better hit the like and subscribe button because clearly the Sylvanian’s going to put on a show in the 26th season coming up. Like and subscribe, guys. I hope you guys like today’s tech. I’ll bring you some more videos. So, hit that button and I’ll see you guys for the next adventure of Beyond the Coverage real soon.