📸 Why Tadej Pogacar is training in black and why his trainer believes he can be even better in 2025...

Tadej Pogacar is the proud World Champion, but the Slovenian rider from UAE Team Emirates-XRG has recently been seen training in a black outfit. After some inquiries, IDLProCycling.com discovered there's a reason for that.

It’s clear that Pogacar is in a good place. The prolific winner is almost a daily presence on social media, always smiling — and for good reason. In 2024, he won nearly everything worth winning, with the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, and the World Championships as standout victories, of course. He also added Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and the Tour of Lombardy to his list of accomplishments.

While the rainbow jersey suits him well, training videos frequently show Pogacar in black. This is —without a doubt also commercially — an extra expense for UAE Team Emirates, although his teammates are almost always seen in the usual white-and-black kit. For example, on Wednesday, Rafal Majka shared a telling image: Pogi in black, while the rest of the team wore the standard colors.

"It’s the winter clothing," UAE Team Emirates-XRG explains. Are warmer jackets not made in the rainbow colors for the team leader, only in UAE’s standard colors? The answer is yes.

Read more below the video.

Can Pogacar be even better in 2025?

The cycling superstar wears any outfit with a smile, as the stars seem to be aligning for Pogacar. And, according to his trainer Javier Sola and performance coach Jeroen Swart, there’s still room for improvement. "We haven’t made serious changes. Obviously, he has a good background. Basically, we introduced a little bit of strength training in the gym. Also, he has improved his body composition compared with other years," Sola explains.

In an interview with Velo, Sola says there is potential for further growth. "I think that he can still improve a little bit, but I cannot predict how much. I think he can still progress in his strength training. So, we’re focusing on that now by including a little bit more compared with last year. Also, we try to do a little bit more intensity for the classics. We will see if he can manage the load and keep progressing. This is a process. We improve something every year."

Read more below the video.

UAE praises Pogacar's professionalism

Swart agrees and calls Pogacar "incredibly professional." "He follows the plan and does the expected work. Occasionally he’s been enthusiastic, and we have to hold him back a bit, but the reality is, often, he’s right. He has an incredible capacity to train, recover, and adapt. Compared to other riders, he’s able to assimilate so much more load at such a rapid rate that he’s able to achieve peak form very quickly."

We certainly noticed that in 2024. Swart calls Pogacar a "once-in-a-generation" rider. Still, Sola is now preparing his leader for the first part of the 2025 season, focusing on one-day races and Monuments. "The calendar is good. The demands of the race of a one-day event like Flanders are not the same as the Tour. So now we only focus on the classics in the beginning, and the Grand Tours after. We will focus very specifically on each type of race."

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