It’s striking that when Tim Wellens is asked to define one standout characteristic that he has grown to appreciate about Tadej Pogačar during the Belgian's first season at UAE Team Emirates, it has almost nothing to do with bike racing.
“What impresses me the most about him is that he always keeps his two feet on the ground and he doesn’t feel better than anyone else. And that’s even though he’s the one rider that could feel better than anyone else, because he’s the best rider in the world, “ Wellens tells Cyclingnews.
“But no, he’s stayed perfectly normal and the way you see him on social media and TV is exactly the way he is in real life. He’s not playing a role."
“He likes what he does, and for sure he’s very playful. But apart from being a good rider, he’s easy to bond with because he’s a very nice person as well.”
While clearly pleased to be working for and with Pogačar, Wellens’ own first year at UAE Team Emirates has been a very eventful one, with a very promising early season brutally poleaxed by his major crash in Flanders.
The resulting injury, with a collarbone broken in four places, proved to be so serious that it did not only wreck Flanders and the rest of his Classics season, but it also played a part in Wellens' failure to be selected for the Tour de France.
However, Wellens pulled his season back together with his victory in last August’s Renewi Tour, and this winter, he’s equally determined to be both back this spring in Belgium and at the Tour de France in July. In Flanders, though, this time round he’ll be fighting for his own chances, while in the Tour, as he puts it, it’ll be 100% about helping Pogačar.
“I’m basically doing the same races as the first part of last year, with the slight difference that I’ll start a little bit later, in February rather than January. The reason for that is even before I crashed in Flanders, I felt my level was dropping off, and we don’t want that to happen again.”
The first major difference will come this April after taking part in around five Belgian Classics, he will finally make his long-awaited debut at Paris-Roubaix - which comes after a total of 28 participations to date in the four other Monuments.
“After that, I’ll take a little break and then start my build-up for the Tour de France,” Wellens says. “I’m honoured to be on the long list for France with UAE with so many top names and my goal is to do some very good work for the team there. To be a real part of the team there.”
Remco, Tadej and the 2024 Tour de France
Wellens’ obvious disappointment at missing out on the Tour in 2023 is tempered a little, perhaps, by the knowledge that this year’s route, with its unprecedented finish in Nice, is one that he relishes. Or as he states categorically, “I love it.”
“It’s partly because I live in Monaco, not so far from the finish, so it’s nice to think I can do the last stage on the last day and then ride home on my bike,” he says. “The only way it’d be even nicer was if it also went through Belgium in the first week. But either way, it’s certainly a nice Tour.
“Those off-road sections of the Tour next July [on stage 9-Ed.] are something I’ve always liked to do, too, and even if hopefully nobody will lose time there by crashing, there are many different ways to lose the Tour in that stage.
“If you crash because you’re in 50th position, for example, then you’ve crashed because you were too far back. But if you have a flat tyre, then of course, nobody wants that to happen…”
Two other significant special ingredients in the 2024 Tour are that the number of standout favourites will double, from two to four, given both Primoz Roglic (Bora-Hansgrohe) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) are expected to join Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) and Pogačar on the startline in Florence.
“I think it’ll be nicer to watch on television because there will be more of a competition,” Wellens reasons.
He also agrees that while he knows which of the ‘Big Four’ he’s putting his money on, there’s a certain Belgian who’s in with more than a shout of finishing in yellow in Nice as well.
“For sure Remco’s got a big chance, even if it’s not as big as Tadej,” Wellens argues before adding with a grin, “though maybe I’m biased.
“But really, nobody doubts Remco, not about what he can do in the Tour. If he can win the Vuelta a España, then of course he can win the Tour.”
The Giro-Tour double
Victorious in the 2022 Vuelta, Evenepoel's performance following his debacle in the opening Pyrenean stage proved that, apart from winning a Grand Tour, he also knew how to bounce back from a serious setback. And Wellens, too, has had his own experience of doing that after his major injury in Flanders: that's to the point where even if he missed out on the Tour de France, he still feels 2023 was a success.
“Last year was a very good one,” he says, weighing up the pros and cons of a season he defines as a rollercoaster.
“For sure, Flanders was a complicated collarbone crash. It wasn’t not just broken, it basically exploded and then one month later I had to have it [the injury] re-opened to fix it for good.”
“So that was disappointing, it was the first time I ever broke a bone in my professional career and I can’t recommend it. Normally when somebody breaks their collarbone, people say ‘Yeah, it’s nothing special.’ But now I have lived through the pain you have when that happens - and for me, it was very unpleasant.
“Even so, the first part of the year was very good, I felt at home with the team and after one year here, I can say UAE was a good discovery.
“The training went well, I was racing at a high level and we had a lot of fun in races. I was really happy with the job I had to do with the team and” - at Andalucia before his crash and in the Renewi Tour outright afterwards - “I won myself. So I cannot complain.”
Furthemore, if Wellens’ personal appreciation of his new team leader after one season is also clear, he’s also had a ringside seat when it comes to witnessing Pogačar’s qualities as a rider. Also, right from the word go, given when Pogačar took his first win of 2023 in the Clásica Jaén, Wellens finished third.
But there was more of the same in the weeks and months to come. In the subsequent Vuelta a Andalucia after Jaén, where Pogačar once again ruled the roost, Wellens also captured his own stage win - curiously enough, in the westerly town of Alcalá de los Gazules, on the same uphill cobbled finish where Wellens had twice triumphed before in 2018 and 2019.
Wellens then formed part of Pogačar’s winning team in Paris-Nice, raced again with the Slovenian in Milano-Sanremo and E3 Harelbeke, and prior to crashing, was alongside Pogačar on the day that the UAE leader took the first cobbled Monument of his career.
Fast forward to 2024, then, and it’s maybe no surprise that with that depth of knowledge of Pogačar's ambition, Wellens is convinced that Pogačar has what it takes to become the first rider in 26 years to win both the Giro d’Italia - where Wellens has two stage wins himself - and the Tour de France in a single year.
“I think the team is very smart and when it comes to this challenge, they know what they’re doing. They’re not just doing it whatever,” he reasons.
“He’s proved three years in a row that he’s the best rider in the world and so there’s no one better who could try to do it. So if anybody can do that [win both Giro and Tour], it’s Tadej.”
And it goes without saying, too, that if Pogačar rolls into Nice in yellow next summer, then Wellens’ lone ride home along the coast to Monaco after the Tour has ended will be even more special.
