“Money doesn’t buy taste”: Tadej Pogačar’s UAE team slammed for “ugliest kit and bike combo ever” – sponsored by oil giant’s new investment arm… but “at least Pogi won’t have to wear it”, fans say + more on the live blog

Speaking of the world champion… After an extremely successful first tilt at a grand tour double in 2024, Tadej Pogačar will once again double up on the three-weekers next season, as he aims for a fourth Tour de France title.

According to Daniel Benson, who’s over at UAE Team Emirates’ Spanish training camp this week, Pogačar will – naturally – target the Tour again in 2025, after regaining the yellow jersey in July from Jonas Vingegaard.

But Benson reports UAE Team Emirates will not make the final decision on his second grand tour until the routes of the Vuelta a España and the Giro d’Italia are confirmed, when he will plump for the parcours that suits him the most.

The Vuelta route is due to be announced next week, though the Giro presentation has been delayed until January due to political reservations about the Italian race’s planned start in Albania.

(Zac Williams/SWpix.com)

However, despite optimistic reports to the contrary following his era-defining season, UAE confirmed that Pogačar will not be attempting an unprecedented grand tour triple in 2025, but will instead aim for the first back-to-back GT double since Miguel Induráin in 1994 and 1995 – either via the same Giro-Tour route Big Mig navigated thirty years ago, or with a career first triumph at the Vuelta, the scene of the Slovenian’s three-week breakthrough in 2019.

Elsewhere, Pogačar will kick off his season at the UAE tour, before a jampacked classics campaign that will include Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo, and a string of cobbled classics which he skipped this year, E3 Saxo Classic, Gent-Wevelgem, and the Tour of Flanders, before taking on the three Ardennes classics at the end of April.

But like the grand tour triple, a first Pogačar crack at Paris-Roubaix will have to wait another year at least.

After possibly heading to the Giro, the Critérium du Dauphiné is on the cards before the Tour, while the only race pencilled in for the second half of the season so far is a world title defence in Rwanda.

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Monday may have been dominated by the raging online debate that erupted in the wake of Mark Cavendish’s controversial exclusion from this year’s Sports Personality of the Year award shortlist, but the Manx Missile did at least make it on to one BBC programme this week – Mastermind.

> “Complete joke”: Mark Cavendish snubbed – but Sarah Storey makes the cut – as BBC Sports Personality of the Year shortlist announced

And no, the Tour de France’s record-breaking stage winner – a proponent of speed chess back in the day – hasn’t decided to take up a post-cycling career in TV quizzing.

Instead, Cavendish was chosen as contestant Jeremy Hick’s specialist subject, which surely means more than yet another SPOTY nomination, doesn’t it?

Jeremy managed a respectable score of eight on all things Cav, before eventually finishing second to Dom, whose specialist subject was, brilliant, The Day Today.

So, just for fun, and for those that haven’t seen it yet, here are the questions Jeremy tackled last night, some of which were fairly tricky, to be fair…

1. Mark Cavendish’s introduction to competitive cycling was when he accompanied his younger brother to the children’s league at the National Sports Centre on the Isle of Man. What’s his brother’s name?
2. To fund the cost of travelling abroad to race, Cavendish took a job at what kind of business establishment at the age of 16?
3. At the 2006 Commonwealth Games in Melbourne, Cavendish won a gold medal for the Isle of Man in which track event?
4. At the Tour de Suisse in 2010, which team organised a protest against Cavendish, after he was deemed responsible for a collision with their rider Heinrich Haussler?
5. At the end of the 2009 Olympics in Beijing, Cavendish borrowed a silver medal from which of his teammates to try to get an upgrade on the flight home?
6. At the end of 2011, Cavendish joined Team Sky on a three-year contract but left after just one season to join which other team?
7. In 2013, Cavendish won the points competition at the Giro d’Italia by taking first place on two intermediate sprints on the final stage and winning the stage itself to overturn which rider’s 11-point lead?
8. Although it was deemed too tough and hilly for Cavendish to handle in 2006, he competed the following year for the first time in what ProTour race, which he described as a “week-long school for suffering”?
9. In 2016, Cavendish won the Madison with Bradley Wiggins at the world championships, then took silver in the Omnium at the Rio Olympics, a month after winning how many stages in the Tour de France?
10. In 2021, Cavendish equalled the record set by Eddy Merckx when he achieved his 34th Tour de France stage win, despite completing the final descent with severe damage to which part of his bike?
11. Cavendish joined Bahrain-McLaren for the 2020 season, after which former British Cycling coach became their team principal? 

I’ll reveal the answers later today, so let us know how you got on. No cheating now!

Human Race, the events company behind the popular Dragon Ride sportive in Wales, has today officially rebranded itself as ASO UK, to better reflect its partnership with the Tour de France’s organisers.

Based in London and one of the UK’s leading mass participation events companies, also organising the Manchester Marathon, Human Race first partnered with ASO back in 2016, when the Dragon Ride – one of Britain’s toughest and longest sportives – was also rebranded as the Dragon Ride L’Etape Wales by Le Tour de France.

Today’s rebranding, the newly minted ASO UK says, is a mere aesthetic alignment with its French parent company, and will have little effect on the British branch’s work or events.

“For many years we’ve been proud to be part of the A.S.O. family and the time was right for our name to match the relationship,” ASO UK’s Andrew Smith said in a statement.

“Alongside delivering our existing best-in-class events we are working together closely on some exciting new projects, as well as sharing knowledge and ideas to benefit our exceptional events across Europe.

“Whilst this is a significant announcement, we have already been working closely with A.S.O., and there will be no changes to how our team operates beyond the name above the door.”

It’s Budget Day in Wales, where the government has set aside £600m for the NHS and an extra £1.5bn overall for public services, with Finance Secretary Mark Drakeford describing the budget as a “real opportunity” to “reinvigorate our public services”.

Meanwhile, the Weelsh government also said today that transport will get an additional £69.6m (a 12 per cent boost), and £51m extra in capital funding.

However, Cycling UK has criticised the lack of clarity in the budget over what this could mean for active travel funding in Wales, arguing that increased support for transport projects that don’t prioritise cycling and walking could undermine the legacy of the country’s 2013 Active Travel Act.

“It’s concerning to see a lack of clarity in today’s Budget regarding funding for active travel,” Gwenda Owen, Cycling UK’s Wales advocacy lead, said in a statement his afternoon.

“Without clear direction from the government on the future of walking and cycling, there is a real risk that Wales’ groundbreaking commitments to active travel could be undermined.

“The Active Travel Act set Wales apart as a leader in sustainable transport, but without proper investment, ambition will evaporate.

“The people of Wales deserve access to affordable, sustainable, and healthy travel. It stands to benefit our economy, health and climate and we will continue to advocate for a future where cycling and walking are at the heart of Wales’s transport system.”

We all know what an ‘easy’ coffee ride looks like for Tadej Pogačar.

Just ask Formula One star Carlos Sainz, who described a leisurely, gentle spin around Monaco for focaccia – which the three-time Tour de France winner reckoned was a “zone zero” hangover effort – as “literally the hardest training session of my life” back in October.

“For Tadej, these are recovery rides, purely for fun, in which he does not push himself. So that cycling losers like myself can get the idea that they can potentially ride as fast as him,” the Ferrari driver said after his ‘relaxing’ spin with the world champion.

“The reality is of course that even during those coffee rides we completely die trying to follow him. He does us the favour of not dropping us because otherwise he has no one to talk to. Of course, talking is relative. I have a heart rate of 170, 180 while he is barely at 110. Those are not really interesting conversations, I can say.”

> “He does us the favour of not dropping us because otherwise he has no one to talk to”: Tadej Pogačar’s ‘easy’ recovery ride “the hardest training session of my life”, says F1 star, who admits “we completely die trying to follow him” during coffee rides

So, if you want to experience what it’s like to gasp for breath while a Triple Crown winner sings a song and texts on his phone, now you can… virtually at least.

Because, on Thursday at 4pm UK time, Pogačar is taking part in an online coffee ride, with riders of all levels, on the virtual training platform MyWhoosh (which you’ll find is plastered on the back of his UAE Team Emirates squad’s divisive shorts).

However, the ride (available under the name ‘Coffee ride with Tadej’ on the app’s live coaching function) will be limited to the first 600 MyWhoosh users on a first come, first served basis, with the ‘join event’ button going live an hour before the start time.

So clicking fingers at the ready on Thursday afternoon – it’ll be like a cycling-themed scramble for Oasis tickets. Let’s hope the servers don’t a Ticketmaster and crash.

Despite Sainz’s warning, we’ve been reliably informed that Pogačar will keep things to coffee ride pace, and not “full on Tadej blast”.

Yeah right – until the first hill probably…

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Tom Pidcock could be set for a bumper €8 million a year contract at Q36.5, rivalling Tadej Pogačar’s astronomical wages at UAE Team Emirates, according to a report in Italian cycling site bici.pro.

The double Olympic mountain bike champion, who was already one of the highest earners in the sports at Ineos, signed a three-year deal with Swiss second-tier squad Q36.5 last week after breaking his contract with the British team early.

And, in a bid to seal a deal for a rider who may have to forgo some of his favourite races next year at a squad reliant on invites from organisers, the Italian cycling site says Pidcock will be paid “about €8 million a year”, a similar figure to that touted when Pogačar inked his six-year extension with UAE last month.

(Ed Sykes/SWpix.com)

Bici.pro says that this bumper contract was the work of Q36.5’s backer Ivan Glasenberg, who was reportedly “obsessed” with securing the British star’s signature when it became clear earlier this autumn that his time at Ineos was up.

South African mining billionaire Glasenberg is also a majority shareholder at Pinarello and, as we reported on the live blog yesterday, a deal has been reached to allow Pidcock to ride his Pinarello bikes for off-road events, while racing on Q36.5 provider Scott’s machines on the road.

Money talks, as they say…

In case you missed it last night…

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