Paris (AFP)

Warm in his bubble, Tadej Pogacar crossed the Tour de France with his natural carefree attitude, fully helped by the health situation and a stunning scenario that will have avoided the pressure of the yellow jersey before the last day of racing.

"This press conference is too much for me," said barely the yellow jersey slipped on Saturday at the end of his stunning time trial, Tadej Pogacar, until then in his bubble, an adapted word at the Tour Covid-19 version.

As if the Slovenian, who offers himself a Tour de France as a gift for his 22nd birthday on Monday, had only become aware of his accomplishment at that time, in front of the audience of journalists.

A mass hitherto difficult to define for him in videoconference or behind the barriers of the mixed zone, an obligatory creation of the coronavirus era on the Tour de France.

It is as if, with this sanitary context, the stars had aligned to allow the Slovenian comet to shine brightly, but at the last moment.

Without going through the often nerve-wracking media obligations that his compatriot Primoz Roglic had to grapple with, yellow jersey eleven days in a row.

- "The light spirit" -

"I tried to stay calm for three weeks", admitted Saturday Pogacar, second youngest winner of the Tour in 107 editions, while looking for the eyes of the others, above the cloud of masks, for the first times facing him.

The secret of the relaxation of the Slovenian, who has already achieved a brilliant Vuelta in 2019 (podium and three stages): "follow the movement step by step" and "keep a light mind in the team bus".

A cocoon in which what mattered to him was first of all to exchange as quickly as possible with his partner Urska Zigart, also a professional cyclist.

"All I wanted was to call or send a message to my girlfriend to tell her that everything was fine," admits the climber with the round, chubby face.

"He is stressed, but only for what matters in his life: his family and his girlfriend," his first trainer, Miha Koncilja, told AFP at his debut club KD Rog in Ljubljana.

"The rest, the bike, the races, he loves it. When you love cycling like him and that you practice it with so much pleasure every day, there can be no stress", describes this friend of the family who lives two kilometers from Komenda (Slovenia), the birthplace of Pogacar.

- Little Pogi -

In the wake of his feat at the Planche des Belles Filles on Saturday, a thousand people spontaneously took to the streets to celebrate the local child in a concert of horns, he says.

A roundabout was even repainted in yellow in honor of + Tamau Pogi + (Little Pogi), his nickname in the youth categories.

Less thick and less tall than boys his age, Pogacar, who started cycling at 9 years old in his brother's wake, has not always crushed the competition.

On the contrary.

He almost had to wait until he was 18 for his first big results: a third place in the European Junior Championship in 2016 just after winning the Giro della Lunigiana, a stage race for juniors contested in Italy which has some pretty good results. names of cycling (Damiano Cunego, Vincenzo Nibali and since Remco Evenepoel).

“You can't stand up to someone who is 20 kilos more,” explains his first trainer.

And among the very young, we do not organize a race on a climb of 8 kilometers.

There he could have won ".

It is in this adversity that he has forged a foolproof mind, according to Miha Koncilja: "He never gives up. As long as it is possible, he believes in it".

Without even realizing it.

© 2020 AFP