Remco Evenpoel took a humorous look at Tadej Pogachar's five wins in one week, but admitted that they are also "part of the motivation" for him to win the UAE Tour overall.

Pogachar missed his "home race," the UAE Tour, and instead has been racking up wins in Andalusia. His five wins in less than a week were hard to ignore, and Evenpoel poked fun at the Slovenian on Instagram, begging him to "stop winning, thank you."

Pogachal replied sportingly: "Now it's your turn."

While the social media exchanges were amusing, Evenepoel told a small group of media, including Cycling News on the UAE tour, that Pogachar's dominance at the Vuelta a Andalucía gave him extra motivation.

"It's a great way to start the season. Every stage, every finish was made for him," Evenpoel suggested.

"Of course, you still have to win the race, and even without his victory, I came here to the UAE with some goals, new objectives. I'm aiming for a stage win and maybe a place on the GC podium.

"It's always inspiring to see other top riders win so easily. It's up to us to get close to his level. It won't be on our minds all day, but it will motivate us to train and race this week."

Pogachar recognized that compared to four years ago, when he last competed in the UAE Tour as a neo-pro and abandoned midway through due to a crash, he was in a very different place that he never thought he would reach in this sport.

"I came here with the idea of winning, but that was three weeks after I turned pro, and after that race I realized it would be very difficult to come back and try to win," he explained.

"I came back after four years and got a very special jersey and a lot of wins.

Asked whether cycling had become a passion or a job during that time, Evenpoel favored the former.

"I felt obligated to train like any other athlete. Recently, I trained for 12 days in Spain. The first five days were in the rain, and in the beginning I wouldn't have wanted to do that. But now I trained for four and a half, five, six hours in the rain, and the highest temperature was eight degrees, so it was pretty cold. Because I look at cycling as something completely different than I did at the beginning of my career."

Another point of training in the rain, he said, was that he knew all too well that the Giro d'Italia often takes place in "super bad weather for a few days or the whole race. So you get motivated by different things, different events, different kinds of races."

He also said that the Giro d'Italia is "a very good race, and I'm very happy to be there.

In one interview, Evenepoel added that his earliest motivation to turn to cycling came from his dislike of soccer, which he played from age 4 to 17.

"I probably started too early. I liked football, but it was all about money and agents. I started to get a little bit angry that that little world determined so much of the sport."

"I was a little bit more interested in the sport.

He admits that soccer and cycling are becoming more and more similar as cycling has become a bigger sport and he has become one of the big names in the peloton.

He believes that his generation's desire to attack faster and race more aggressively has drawn a new and larger audience to cycling.

"I think the way the races have developed recently has brought more people to watch the sport. Before, people used to only watch the last hour of the race, but now you never know what will happen in the first 100 kilometers from the start.

"At the same time, jerseys and bikes are getting cooler, everything is getting closer to football, more chic and expensive. So it's getting more attention. Football is the top sport, but cycling is getting closer to it."

All this makes Evenpoel, one of the sport's most high-profile stars, return to the UAE Tour and what he hopes to accomplish here.

This is the second race of the season, but also the last stage race before the Giro d'Italia. After making his season debut at the Vuelta a San Juan International, Evenpoel will ride the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya in late March, train at altitude in April, and then ride Liege-Bastogne-Liege before the Giro d'Italia begins on May 6. He plans to run.

"I want to take a step forward compared to Argentina," Evenpoel said after finishing seventh overall in San Juan. It felt a little weird to go home without a prize."

Evenepoel's best chance to move up in the overall comes in the two uphill finishes on stages 3 and 7.

Pogachar will miss the race, but the UAE team includes Adam Yates, Jay Vine, and Brandon McNulty.

"A podium is a good goal," Evenpoel said cautiously, but at the same time he was eager for his first win in the world champion's rainbow jersey.

"I'm feeling good, but I'm still only at 90% of my ability. It depends on the team time trial. The main thing is not to get sick or crash like I did in 2019 when I injured my arm. Such an injury is not a big deal in terms of the Giro, but a broken arm would be."