MEET THE PARENTS

What made Tadej Pogačar the phenomenon he is today? Chris Marshall-Bell went to Slovenia to meet his mum and dad, Mirko and Marjeta

- Chris Marshall-Bell

Tadej Pogačar was very impressionable as a young child. Whenever he was introduced to a new sport or activity, he was curious about it and wanted to know more. Like the first time he saw someone on a unicycle. "There was a guy in the neighbourhood who had a unicycle, and one time he came to an event with it," his mother Marjeta tells me in a spacious cafe in their hometown of Komenda, 20km from the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana.

"He showed people how to ride it and our kids were really interested. They wanted to learn, so we bought them one." Sibling competition soon called for the purchase of a second unicycle, and in no time the 10-year-old Tadej and his older brother, Tilen, were regularly riding around the small town of 6,000 people on one wheel. "If you gave them a unicycle now, they could still ride it. They were always practising," Marjeta adds.

Unicycles aren't often thought of as cargo bikes, but the brothers would even ride them to their paternal grandparents' farm to collect milk. "When we'd tell Tadej and Tilen to go fetch some milk, they'd say: 'It's too hard to walk. It's easier to go by bike,' so they'd go by unicycle," Marjeta laughs.

You might think a career in the circus was beckoning to Tadej at this point, rather than one in the World Tour - but his one-wheeled fun was brought to a sudden halt. "They rode them until one day the unicycles were stolen," Marjeta says, then pauses, a wry smile forming. "Or they lost them. We don't know. All we know is that we had two, and then they were both gone."

In the two decades that have followed, Tadej Pogačar has developed from a unicyclist into arguably the greatest two-wheeled bike rider of all time. When he was a child, his parents could not have imagined such a trajectory, but a life of sport was guaranteed. "Tadej was always active," Marjeta says. "If there wasn't enough action, he'd make some. He would always find ways to have fun with his brother and sisters."