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Pogačar on Pantani Giro-Tour double: ‘A dream to do what he did’

The slovenian hopes to be the first to with both races since 1998.

On Saturday, Tadej Pogačar begins what could be an incredible feat: winning both the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year. In an interview with Gazetta dello Sport , Pogi says he loves Italy, and is excited for the Corsa Rosa. “I have to tell you that if it had been up to me, I would have come here five years ago,” the 25-year-old said. Pogačar is popular with the tifosi, most likely due to his incredible racing style–and wins in the country, like Strade Bianche or Il Lombardia. loves him. Likewise, Pogačar loves Italy: the races, the pizza, pasta and espresso, he said.

“A dream to win both the Giro and Tour

And he hopes to follow in the pedal strokes of one of the greatest Italian cyclists in recent history, the late Marco Pantani. “I’m too young to remember Pantani on TV, but it would be a dream to do what he did,” Pog says, of the Giro-Tour double.

Throwback to the ‘Jeans Team,’ the Italian Carrera squad

In 1998, Pantani won the Giro d’Italia with a minute and a half over Pavel Tonkov and over six minutes over Giuseppe Guerini. Less than a month later, he won the Tour, beating Jan Ullrich and Bobby Julich. Although other male cyclists have won two Grand Tours in the same year–Alberto Contador and Chris Froome, none have done the Italian/French double since Pantani.

Pogačar is the clear favorite for the Giro. He leading UCI world rankings, the Slovenian has had a fantastic season thus far, clinching victory in seven out of ten races.

Perfect preparation thus far

“The preparation for the Giro has gone really well. I haven’t raced too much so far this year, just 10 days, so I’m feeling fresh and ready to take on my first Giro. It’s a race I’ve dreamed of doing for a long time and it feels like now that the time is right to go for it,” the two -time Tour de France champion said. “I raced in Italy a lot as an amateur and it has been an important country in my journey as a cyclist. For sure it is one of my favourite places to ride a bike and I also love the culture and of course the food. I hope we can make this month a special one.”

Putting 2023 behind him

His preparation didn’t go quite as well in 2023, which took a tool on him, he admits. After crashing out of Liège-Bastogne-Liège, he was later diagnosed with a broken wrist. Thus significantly disrupted his preparation for the race. It meant several weeks off from riding, he missed his usual preparation races, and definitely affected his fitness

“Last year was harder than this year both mentally and physically because of my injury, I suffered a lot,” he said. “So, this year my goals are clear and so is the plan to achieve them. It is much easier mentally, at least it seems so for now. Maybe after the Tour, I’ll give a different opinion when we see how much I’ve got left in the tank.”

The Giro begins Saturday, and you can watch it on FloBikes.com

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Chasing the double: Can Tadej Pogačar really succeed at the Giro and the Tour?

The Slovenian could be the first rider in 26 years to win the two Grand Tours in the same season

Words: Stephen Puddicombe

Photos: SWPix.com

Winning both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in the same season has over the last few decades become notorious as an impossible frontier in men’s cycling. Though the double has been achieved by seven riders in the past (once each by Jacques Anquetil and Stephen Roche, two times by Fausto Coppi, Jacques Anquetil and Miguel Indurain, and three times by Eddy Merckx), nobody has managed it since Marco Pantani in 1998, leading to an ever stronger consensus that it is incompatible with the demands of modern cycling. 

Some have tried in the years since, but few have come even close. For the great Grand Tour riders of the past few generations, the double has been perceived as a challenge to seek out, something to strive to add to the palmarès when circumstances dictate. Wanting to ride the Tour, but not wishing to sacrifice his home Grand Tour, Ivan Basso targeted the double in both 2006 and 2010, but, despite winning the Giro each time, was respectively refused entry in the aftermath of the Operation Puerto scandal, and suffered a lack of form.

In 2011, Alberto Contador was prompted to ride (and win) the Giro when the possibility of a doping suspension threatened his participation at the Tour, and, even though he was ultimately cleared to ride the Tour, his form also suffered, finishing down in fifth. After both those results were annulled by the delayed doping sanction, he tried again in 2015, achieving the exact same results of first and fifth respectively. And in 2017, Nairo Quintana’s attempt fell at the first hurdle when he lost out to Tom Dumoulin at the Giro, before tiredly dragging himself to a lowly 12th place at the Tour.

Chris Froome came the closest in 2018, capitalising on a slightly modified calendar that allowed for an extra week’s rest between the two races. Though he toiled to win the Giro, taking the pink jersey only after his now legendary 80km comeback attack, he was clearly still relatively fresh at the Tour. But he still couldn’t quite complete the double, finishing third behind Sky team-mate Geraint Thomas, and Tom Dumoulin — who, having also finished second behind Froome at the Giro, reiterated the double’s feasibility that year. The calendar has since reverted back to normal, removing that key extra week of rest, and none of the new generation of Grand Tour stars have attempted it since. 

That’s why Tadej Pogačar’s announcement on Sunday that he intends to ride both races in 2024 has caused such a stir in the world of cycling. Many have greeted the prospect with glee, anticipating with bated breath the best rider in the world taking on one of the sport’s great challenges. By contrast, others are questioning the rationale of the decision, predicting that it is in effect handing Jonas Vingegaard the yellow jersey on a platter. The double has come to be seen as something unrealistically idealistic, a hubristic pursuit in denial of how the real world operates, a folly even for a rider as brilliant as Pogačar. So much so, that the Slovenian was uncharacteristically coy when asked about whether he was indeed targeting GC in both, saying: “Let’s see first how it goes with the Giro, and then how it goes with the Tour. Let’s not think about the double, let's just go to enjoy racing."

Leading this vanguard of change is Pogačar himself, achieving results previously not thought possible any more. By winning Liège–Bastogne–Liège in 2021, he became the first rider since Bernard Hinault 30 years earlier to win a Monument and the Tour in the same season; then following his Il Lombardia success later that year, the first to win two Monuments plus the Tour since Eddy Merckx. And though he did not couple it with a Grand Tour victory last year, his victory on the cobblestones at the Tour of Flanders totally ripped up the rulebook; nobody had won both the Tour of Flanders and the diametrically opposed Il Lombardia in the same season in 32 years, while you again had to go back to Merckx for the last time someone made the Tour de France podium as well. 

Still, the Giro-Tour double feels like an extra level of difficulty, and one that Pogačar is having to accommodate for. Something has to give from his race program, especially as he intends to also target the World Championships and Olympic Games, and so he has planned a much leaner Classics campaign. He also announced that he will only ride Strade Bianche and Milan-Sanremo in the spring, and neglect to defend his titles at the Tour of Flanders , Amstel Gold and Flèche Wallonne . 

Even with these sacrifices though, it’s going to be very hard for Pogačar to pull it off, if only because of how formidable an opponent Jonas Vingegaard has been at the last two Tours. Even if Pogačar were only targeting the Tour, he’d still have to be considered a joint favourite at best for the yellow jersey, given the way the Dane so thoroughly defeated him last year. Perhaps this contributed to his decision to ride the Giro — rather than put all his eggs in the Tour basket, a victory at the Giro would at least mean he has one Grand Tour victory in 2024 regardless of what happens in France.

Pogačar is such a special rider you sense that if anyone can buck the trend and win the Giro-Tour double, it’s him. He’s currently operating at a level few have in the whole history of the sport, and, given the unpredictability and temporary nature of the sport, cannot know how long he’ll be this good. Aware that, having recently turned 25-years-old, his body may now be in as good a condition as it will ever be, Pogačar stated that "I am now not so young anymore, and I think I can do two Grand Tours”. If ever there was a time to chase history by aiming for a Giro-Tour double, it’s now, and if ever there was a rider to do so, it’s him.

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Alberto Contador and the history of the Giro d'Italia-Tour de France double

No one has won the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year since Marco Pantani sailed up the Champs-Élysées in 1998. Will Alberto Contador emulate his achievement this month and become the eighth double winner in history?

I t is July 1998 and the flawed genius of Italian cycling is crossing the finish line on the Champs-Élysées in the Yellow Jersey after one of the most controversial Tours in history. The 20 days in which the race has wound around the Hexagon have seen the withdrawal of the mighty Festina squad after their soigneur Willy Voet was caught with a carload of EPO, the bitter tears of a peroxided Richard Virenque, a series of hotel raids that led to all four Spanish teams dropping out of the race, a procession of arrests, confessions and sit-down protests, and a jut-chinned rebel sitting cross legged in the road as the race teetered on the edge of disaster. That image of “ il Pirata ”, his goateed face the picture of insouciance, has become iconic.

Five days after his victory at Plateau de Beille, Marco Pantani pulled on the Yellow Jersey after an extraordinary stage to les Deux-Alpes. Crossing the line, he closed his eyes and raised his arms in a cross, a new Christ crucified. Attacking 5km from the summit of the Galibier, 48km from the finish in Deux-Alpes, the slight figure of the Italian took flight in the high mountains. He crushed the hopes of an out-of-condition Jan Ullrich, who floundered in adrift in the pouring rain, the German crumbling in the face of the Italian climber’s utter dominance. Pantani called his victory “the best day of my career” and dedicated his win to Luciano Pezzi who had steered Felice Gimondi to victory in 1965.

Rewind to June 1998. The sodden martyr of the Deux-Alpes is now the consecrated Christ of the Montecampione. Pantani goes into the stage with a slender 27” lead over Pavel Tonkov. There’s a 34km time-trial to come, where the solid Russian will surely assert his dominance. Pantani has one chance to win the Giro as the race winds through the enchanted valley of the Bresciano. He has one chance to find the moment of magic that will put enough time between himself and his unexpected rival. And finally he finds it. The Italian attacks again and again until he breaks the thread that binds Tonkov to his wheel and he is gone. Pantani carries his slender lead into the time-trial where the Maglia Rosa seems to give him wings. The Giro is his.

It’s the summer of 1987 and Channel 4 are in their second year of covering the Tour de France . The mad, epic glory is bursting on to our screens in full glorious colour from the narrow confines of the monochrome newsprint to which cycling had previously been confined. We’ve lived the internecine drama of the 1986 Tour and now we’re insatiable. Who will feed our appetite for the grand exploit and some good old-fashioned team infighting?

Stephen Roche is no tortured martyr of the velo. The Irishman was always a more calculating rider, though he shares the Italian’s individuality. And he will not only take the Double but he will go on to add the Rainbow Stripes of the world champion in Villach, Austria , with a blistering attack just 500m from the finish line on a rain sodden afternoon to take the Triple Crown. Only one other rider has ever achieved that feat – step forward Eddy Merckx.

By the time Roche arrived on the start line in West Berlin, two years before the Wall came tumbling down, he had already won the Giro in controversial circumstances. The Irishman finally beat his team-mate Roberto Visentini after the balance of power had see-sawed between them throughout the race. First blood went to Visentini in the prologue. It was advantage Roche in the Poggio time-trial and the Pink Jersey after Carrera won the time trial. But Visentini fought back – by stage 13 his lead was 2’42”. Roche had said the road would decide who deserved to be the leader and the road had spoken.

But if it had, Roche wasn’t listening.

There was no love lost between Roche and Visentini. The Italian felt he was the rightful team leader - he was the defending champion and Roche had lost most of the 1986 season to a knee injury. The Irishman accused the Italian of being a dilettante who didn’t need to ride a bike: a daddy’s boy, a playboy, not a team player. And in 1987 Roche was in the form of his life, coming into the Giro off the back of a string of wins and podium places. Then came the betrayal – Visentini reneged on his promise to ride for Roche at the Tour de France. “Balls,” said Visentini in an interview in 2014, after he learned that Roche had been inducted into the Giro Hall of Fame, “an excuse made up to explain what happened.”

For the Italian, the events of stage 15 dealt him a psychological blow from which he never recovered. On the road to Sappada, the fratricidal struggle at the heart of the Carrera team played itself out over 224km and three tough mountain passes. It was Romulus and Remus on bicycles. If LeMond had slain the Badger on the roads of France in 1986, then Roche would knock the shine off Golden Boy Visentini in Italy.

The deed was done. But Roche didn’t take the heat Hinault did the year before – maybe fans and media are sentimental enough to believe in chivalry and chauvinistic enough to excuse an English-speaking rider. Visentini had played with Roche’s head and his team had tried to silence him. The next day, on what became known as the “Marmolada Massacre”, Roche rode on head high, flanked by Scotland’s Robert Millar, as the crowds jeered and booed, soaked him in wine, spit and who knows what. He discovered a tough streak in his nature that he never knew he had. “My attitude towards the public was: ‘Say what you want, I am not going home.’ ” It was the ideal preparation for the Double, which is won as much in the head as by the legs.

Roche’s French triumph was built on one of the most iconic stages in modern Tour de France history, stage 21 from Bourg-d’Oisans to La Plagne . The stage when the Irishman rode himself into and beyond the red, necessitating oxygen after he crossed the finish line. The stage when he saved the Tour by crossing the line only seconds after the Spanish climber Pedro Delgado to the immortal, disbelieving words of Phil Liggett: “Just who is that rider coming up behind – because that looks like Roche! That looks like Stephen Roche!” It was Roche – and he would ride into the Yellow Jersey during the final time-trial.

Spain’s Miguel Indurain came close to matching Roche and Merckx – after precisely engineering the Double in 1992 and 1993 through his unstoppable prowess against the clock, it was a brash young American called Lance Armstrong who came between “Big Mig” and the Triple Crown in Oslo in 1993. When Armstrong was summarily stripped of his titles in 2014, he was allowed to keep those Rainbow Stripes.

Like the “sphinx of Pamplona”, “ Maître ” Jacques Anquetil constructed his Grand Tour victories by demoralising the opposition by crushing them in the race of truth. Anquetil’s only Double – in a career that saw him become the first rider to win all three of the Grand Tours – came in 1964, and he won it in atypical style, by beating his eternal rival Raymond Poulidor on the legendary climb of the Puy de Dome.

Look in the dictionary under mano a mano and you’ll see a black and white image of the two Frenchman going elbow to elbow, on the roughly paved slopes of the extinct volcanic conk of the Puy de Dome. With the race ending with a time-trial into Paris, Poulidor had no option but to seize the day on his favoured terrain. 58” behind Anquetil, he would never have a better opportunity to pull on the Yellow Jersey.

What resulted was an almost mythical battle between guts, courage and determination and the implacable force of cold-hearted calculation. Though Poulidor would cross the line ahead of his rival, Anquetil still clung on to the race lead by a slender 14” – 13 more than he needed, according to Monsieur Chrono. The Norman cracked over the final kilometre and began haemorrhaging time. But too bad for Poulidor – he was incapable of forcing his advantage. He admitted later: “It’s said that Anquetil bluffed me that day, but he didn’t. I was at the end of my strength and so was he. To say I should have attacked earlier is science-fiction.” The fact was Anquetil took the Double and Poulidor would never wear the Yellow Jersey.

And then there was Merckx. The greatest of them all, who would win an unprecedented – and never equalled – 11 Grand Tours. Merckx didn’t just “do” the Double, he stamped his authority all over both races with margins of victory in the double digits. And he won in the mountains, the time-trials and on the flat showcasing his extraordinary versatility. Never more so than in his last Double in 1974 – on an innocuous stage to Orleans, his shorts soaked with blood from an operation wound that refused to heal, Merckx simply shot away from the peloton like a human bullet and took 1’ 25” from the hard chasing pack over the closing 14km of the stage. It was heady stuff. By the time the race reached Paris, Merckx had won a record eight stages.

Bernard Hinault – “the Badger” – announced himself as the most fearsome rider since Merckx by winning both the Vuelta and the Tour at the age of 23. The effortless way he cruised to the Giro-Tour Double in 1982 only confirmed that here was the first rider in a generation to challenge the career achievements of the Cannibal. But 1985 was different. A hard-fought win over Francesco Moser in Italy saw him take the race with a slender margin of 1’ 08” over the Italian who had pushed him every inch of the way by sprinting for every time bonus available. Moser might have overhauled the deficit but he simply ran out of road. Lurking behind the Sheriff, and taking the third spot on the podium, was another young hot shot American by the name of Greg Lemond.

The story of the 1985 Tour de France is often overshadowed by the internecine warfare of the 1986 race when Hinault was forced to make good on a promise to his younger team-mate, though not without a fight. And it was Lemond who would prove Hinault’s closest rival in 1985 after his team leader crashed heavily during a bunch sprint into St Etienne. The indomitable Badger was wounded, his nose broken and his eyes blackened – bloodied but definitely unbowed. He would win, but not without a little help from his friends – chiefly LeMond.

It was the American that took off after Delgado and Roche and neutralised their attacks on the slopes of Luz-Ardiden, when his leader began to flounder in the mist. LeMond claimed he had sacrificed his own chances of overall victory that day to drop back and aid his failing team leader. Hinault knew he owed LeMond a favour and declared publicly, on TV, that next year’s race would be “for the American”. In 1986 we would finally get the shootout at the OK Corral.

LeMond v Hinault, Anquetil v Poulidor, Coppi v Bartali. These are the great rivalries that have driven riders to achieve the seemingly impossible. And no rivalry was greater than that of Fausto “ il Campianissimo ” Coppi and Gino “ il Piou ” Bartali. If Merckx laid waste to his rivals on the way to his Double victories, Coppi was simply on another planet in 1949 when he beat Bartali at the Giro and then the Tour. It was the first Double and the glamourous pin-up of the Italian sport treated the faithful tifosi to a display that remains unparalleled.

On stage 17 of the Giro – a monstrous 245km of pain that crossed the Maddalena, Vars, Izoard, Montgenèvre and Sestriere under lowering and unforgiving skies – Coppi simply flew, crossing four of those forbidding Alpine passes alone and riding 190km solo to the finish in Pinerolo. He replicated the feat three years later by crossing the Croix de Fer, Galibier and Montgenèvre in first place before winning at Sestriere by seven minutes and putting the Tour firmly beyond the reach of his rival. The day before he had become the first man to win on the 21 hairpins of Alpe d’Huez – the first ever summit finish in a Grand Tour. Fausto Coppi was touched by the angels, his effortless pedal stroke propelling him effortlessly into the stratosphere.

It took another 12 years before Anquetil matched Coppi’s feat. It is 17 years since Pantani wore Yellow in Paris. Is it possible that Alberto Contador – the slight Spanish rider with the classical climbing style of a true mountain goat and the most calculating cycling brain in the modern sport – can equal that feat?

He was forced to dig deep, perhaps too deep, during the brutal last week of the Giro. He had 34 days to ready himself for the most mountainous Tour in years, where he faces the combined might of 2013 champion Chris Froome, 2014 Giro winner Nairo Quintana and 2014 Tour de France champion Vincenzo Nibali. Froome and Nibali gave us a tantalising glimpse of their current form at the Criterium du Dauphine. Quintana is already the winner of the Tirreno-Adriatico. All three will have watched Contador’s performance on the Colle de Finestre and perceived either fatal weakness or a calculating champion holding something in reserve for the roads of France.

Contador has already completed the most difficult part of his journey towards the holy grail of cycling. And as the winner of the 2014 Vuelta, he is on course to become only the third rider in cycling history to hold all three Grand Tour titles consecutively. Only Merckx and Hinault have achieved that feat and they are the greatest of the great. In this modern era of intense specialisation, to match them would be extraordinary.

Stamina, recovery, calculation, courage, determination, physical and mental toughness all play their part in a successful tilt at cycling’s most glittering prize. As the most successful Grand Tour rider of his generation, Contador has shown an abundance of those qualities in riding to his seven victories. But whether the Tour de France is a race too far, only the road can decide.

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Tadej Pogačar Poised for Giro-Tour Double as 2024 Tour de France Route Unfolds

Tadej Pogačar is poised for a Giro-Tour double this year, with high expectations as the heavy favorite for the Tour de France following his impressive performance in Italy and the setbacks of his competitors. Last year's Tour saw him challenged by Jonas Vingegaard, but Pogačar's dominance in the Giro d'Italia has solidified his position as a top contender for this year's Tour. The absence of Vingegaard, recovering from injuries, further cements Pogačar's status as the favorite.

• Pogačar dominated the Giro d'Italia with six stage wins and a significant lead of nine minutes and 56 seconds.
• Pogačar enters the Tour de France as the favorite with odds at 1/3, followed by Primož Roglič at 4/1.

The potential return of Jonas Vingegaard from injuries could impact Pogačar's status as the favorite for the Tour de France if Vingegaard is able to participate and regain top form.

• Tadej Pogačar is gearing up for a potential Giro-Tour double, with high hopes for success in the upcoming Tour de France.
• Pogačar's main rival, Jonas Vingegaard, is working on recovering from injuries sustained in a crash and aiming to compete in the Tour.

Pogačar's performance in the Tour de France will be closely watched, especially considering the potential return of Jonas Vingegaard and the overall competitive landscape in the race.

Tadej Pogačar's exceptional showing in the Giro d'Italia has positioned him as the favorite for the upcoming Tour de France, setting the stage for a potential historic Giro-Tour double this year.

Read more at PezCycling News

The summary of the linked article was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence technology from OpenAI

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Breaking Down the Odds, Risks & Rewards of Pogačar’s Giro/Tour Double

Transfer time # 6: israel-premier tech & intermarché-wanty.

Transfer Analysis: Spencer Martin breaks down the odds, risks and rewards of Tadej Pogačar’s bold Giro/Tour double attempt in 2024. Plus Transfer Time # 6 : Israel – Premier Tech and Intermarché-Wanty.

– This article is an excerpt from the Beyond the Peloton newsletter. Sign up here for full access. –

At the end of the 2023 Tour de France, the consensus view was that to defeat Jonas Vingegaard and win his third Tour de France title, Tadej Pogačar needed to significantly narrow his race schedule and ambitions in 2024 relative to his sprawling 2023 campaign.

However, just a few months after learning that lesson, the transcendent superstar appears to have thrown caution to the wind by announcing that instead of focusing on the Tour de France in 2024, he would be significantly widening his scope this coming season by attempting the near-impossible Giro d’Italia/Tour de France double, while also targeting Olympic gold in early August, World Championships in late September before finishing off the season with an attempt at winning his fourth-consecutive Il Lombardia in early October.

Pogačar’s 2024 Schedule 3/4: Strade Bianche 3/16: Milan-San Remo 3/18-3/24: Volta a Catalunya 4/21: Liège-Bastogne-Liège 5/4-5/26: Giro d’Italia 6/29-7/21: Tour de France 7/27-8/3: Olympic Games TT & RR 9/13-9/15: GP Québec & Montreal 9/29: World Championships RR 10/12: Il Lombardia

Why this is shocking, and what it means for Pogačar and the other Tour contenders in 2024: While this race schedule certainly mixes things up for Pogačar sets up a great Giro d’Italia, where we will see two of the sport’s biggest stars, Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogačar, duke it out for stages, and potentially even the overall title, I can’t express just how shocking this news was to me and just how much it helps Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France.

• Even though Pogačar is attempting to leverage an easier-than-normal Giro route to get an ‘easy’ grand tour win on the board before heading to the Tour (he hasn’t won a grand tour since 2021) and potentially complete a historic Giro-Tour sweep, racing any three-week race, even one with a relatively mild course, is still incredibly difficult, especially due to the trend of line-to-line racing in modern cycling.
• This means Pogačar’s decision to race drastically shifts the odds in favor of Vingegaard to win the Tour and also means Primož Roglič has a much better chance than he would have had otherwise.
• After the Pogačar announcement, betting markets have Vingegaard at -155 (61% chance of winning) to win the Tour, while Pogačar has dropped to +300 (25% chance) and Roglič is up to +500 (16.7%).
• To highlight just how difficult the feat of contesting both the Giro and Tour, in the 100+ years of cycling history, only seven riders have won both races in the same season, with Marco Pantani double a quarter of a century ago being the last time it occurred (tests would later reveal Pantani used EPO to complete the feat).
• Since Pantani accomplished this, only three extremely talented riders have come close to the double, only to fall short due to fatigue at the Tour.
• 2015: Alberto Contador- Giro 1st & Tour 5th
• 2018: Chris Froome-Giro 1st & Tour 3rd
• 2018: Tom Dumoulin-Giro 2nd & Tour 2nd

The Risks Pogačar is certainly more talented than any of these three riders, has already redefined what a rider is capable of in modern cycling, and would ascend into the upper echelon of the sport’s greats if he could win both races, but this attempt seems like a bridge too far and carries a significant amount of risk.

• In the last two Tours, Pogačar has been outclassed by Vingegaard in the race’s toughest mountain stages.
• Since the only way to remedy this weakness is to lessen his racing load and focus more on specific high-altitude training camps prior to the Tour, this decision to double up at the Giro and Tour seems ill-advised.
• Also, it is incredibly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a rider who finishes second to the same rider at the Tour multiple times to shift their focus the following season while still in their prime. In fact, when big champions start targeting the Giro after winning the Tour, it is incredibly rare for them to come back and win the Tour again.
• After winning the Giro in 2015 and 2018, Contador and Froome never again won the Tour de France.
• Additionally, if Pogačar shows up to the Tour and looks subpar after the Giro, it will be hard for him to avoid the narrative that he was running from a fair fight with Vingegaard at the Tour and hedged against being left with yet another runner-up place at the Tour by getting a Giro win in beforehand.

The Rewards & Logic On the flip side, one has to imagine Pogačar signed a highly lucrative seven-figure contract with RCS to make their marque races the centerpieces of his season (Lance Armstrong and Chris Froome each received between €2-€3 million to start the Giro).

• Making large amounts of money is nice, and I’d imagine Pogačar will enjoy having a few extra million burning a hole in his pocket for doing exactly what he would be doing anyway to prepare for the Tour (riding his bike a lot, oftentimes up mountains very fast).

Also, we can’t underestimate the morale boost Pogačar could receive from getting a grand tour win before the start of the Tour.

• Heading into yet another Tour duel with Vingegaard with a Giro win under his belt could potentially take pressure off Pogačar.

Sepp Kuss won the 2023 Vuelta a España after racing a very strong Tour de France, after completing all three grand tours in a single season.

• Perhaps modern training science has potentially shown that with proper training, nutrition, and recovery, a top rider can actually prepare for a three-week race by racing one just a few weeks prior.

If he is somehow able to pull off the double, Pogačar would immediately enter the upper echelons of the sport’s all-time greats before he even heads into the back half of the season where he could win Olympic gold, a World title, and yet another one-day Monument.

• We don’t yet know if this is a great or terrible idea, but we do know that RCS’ aggressive recruitment of Van Aert and Pogačar for its grand tour has certainly added much-needed publicity around the Giro and made it match-watch TV for any dedicated cycling fan.

Weekly Transfer Analysis Part 6:

To continue our in-depth transfer analysis of every top team going into the 2024 season, I’ve continued to select two teams that have had polar opposite experiences as teams over the last few years, as well as in the transfer market so far this off-season, but have broken from form slightly by selecting one WorldTour and one second-division (ProTeam) team: Intermarché-Wanty and Israel-Premier Tech.

• You can see Transfer Time #1 HERE, #2 HERE #3 HERE , #4 HERE , #5 HERE and an Updated Transfer Time HERE .

Israel-Premier Tech

• Notable new signings: Pascal Ackerman (UAE), George Bennett (UAE), Hugo Hofstetter (Arkéa), Jake Stewart (FDJ), Ethan Vernon (Soudal-QuickStep), Riley Sheehan (Denver Disruptors)
• Notable departing riders: Sebastian Berwick (Caja-Rural), Giacomo Nizzolo (Q36.5), Ben Hermans (Cofidis), Sep Vanmarcke (retired), Daryl Impey (retired)
• Notable unsigned riders: Domenico Pozzovivo
• Total Riders In: 10
• Total Riders Out: 10
• 2024 Roster Spots Remaining: 0
• 2023 UCI Team Ranking Position: 16th
• Pro Cycling Stats Points In/Out: +406

After falling victim to relegation from the sport’s top flight at the end of the 2022 season, the now second-division squad had a slightly improved 2023, but, relative to teams competing to get back into the sport’s top tier, had a thoroughly mediocre campaign. While they had a few standout performances from previously unknown riders, like Derek Gee coming out of nowhere to become their 3rd highest points-scoring rider, and they saw young riders like Corbin Strong and Matthew Riccitello continue to develop, and veteran stalwart Michael Woods deliver with a Tour de France stage win, the team was ultimately dragged down in the aggregate by underperformances across the board by their highly-paid veteran riders. But, likely as a response to this, management was extremely aggressive this off-season by going out and signing 10 new riders, including a strong batch of quality young, while sending 10 riders out.

• The addition of 29-year-old sprinter Pascal Ackerman is the team’s headline addition of the off-season.
• While the German fastman is still capable of bagging Grand Tour stages (he won a stage at the 2023 Giro), he is a shadow of the rider who won the Points Jersey at the 2019 Giro and finished 7th in the 2019 PCS Rider Rankings (he finished 179th in 2023).
• But, as long as Israel’s expectations, and financial investment, take this dropoff into account, he could act as a solid bunch sprint specialist for the team in 2024, which is something they’ve lacked in recent years (they’ve never won a Grand Tour stage from a bunch sprint).
• Additionally, even if Ackerman struggles to return to his winning ways, 2nd-10th place finishes at WorldTour races will be incredibly valuable for the team as they aim to rack up UCI points to get back into the WorldTour when the promotion/relegation cycle ends in 2025.
• While it won’t get the headlines of the Ackerman signing, bringing on Riley Sheehan (23), Jake Stewart (24), and Ethan Vernon (23) sees them pick up three incredibly strong young riders who could all step in and contest wins at lesser-WorldTour races for the team in 2024.
• The 33-year-old George Bennett, who comes over after a few forgettable years at UAE, is a slightly odd pickup since, at least at this point in his career, he is operating as a grand tour domestique.
• But he did finish an impressive top ten at the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in 2023, and if IPT thinks they can rehab him back into the stage-hunting form he had in 2020 and 2021, then this is a decent pickup for them.
• The outgoing crop of riders might feature some big names like Giacomo Nizzolo, Ben Hermans, Sep Vanmarcke, and Daryl Impey, but due to their age and/or declining performances, none will be sorely missed.
• Instead, the departure of the 24-year-old climbing specialist Sebastian Berwick, who broke out by finishing on a stage podium at the 2023 Giro, is a bit of a head-scratcher.
• Berwick might not have been progressing as quickly as the team would have liked after three years, but he was coming off a career season and seemed to have plenty of potential upside.

Intermarché-Wanty

• Notable new signings: Francesco Busatto (Circus – ReUz – Technord), Alexy Faure Prost (Circus – ReUz – Technord)
• Notable departing riders: Rui Costa (EF), Sven Erik Bystrøm (FDJ), Niccolò Bonifazio (Corratec)
• Notable unsigned riders:
• Total Riders In: 5
• Total Riders Out: 7
• 2024 Roster Spots Remaining: 3
• 2023 UCI Team Ranking Position: 15th
• Pro Cycling Stats Points In/Out: -1419

Coming off a disappointing 2023 season, which saw them revert to the mean after a fantastic 2022, Intermarché has had a surprisingly muted off-season that saw them depart with a key veteran, Rui Costa, while bringing on a series of talented but incredibly unproven, young riders. While this might be the best move for the long term, it is difficult to imagine the loss of Circus, a casino, as a sponsor due to a new Belgian gambling law (funnily enough, the state lottery, Lotto, is exempt from this rule) didn’t cause a crash-crunch that has dented the team’s ability to procure talent at a critical time.

• Amidst one of the blandest transfer performances in the World Tour, Intermarché’s biggest highlight is parting with a good chunk of its veteran riders (Rui Costa, Sven Erik Bystrøm, and Niccolò Bonifazio).
• With Bonifazio and Erik Bystrøm (U23 World Champion) never panning out as expected, their departures won’t move the needle for the team.
• However, losing Rui Costa is notable.
• Even at 37 years old, Costa was the team’s biggest points scorer in 2023 and was able to take a grand tour stage win at the Vuelta.
• While I love the idea of bringing in a collection of young talent and shedding older riders and believe the team will benefit long-term from doing so, the fact that they are at a net loss of PCS points for the second straight season means the team is increasingly revolving around the 23-year-old Biniam Girmay and that a significant amount of pressure will be on his young shoulders in 2024 to ensure the team avoids a relegation battle in 2025.
• But, going in their favor is that their track record of discovering and developing young talent into race winners is incredibly solid (Girmay, Gerben Thijssen, Georg Zimmermann), which means the young riders they are bringing up from their development squad, like 21-year-old Francesco Busatto (winner of 2023 U23 Liege-Bastogne-Liege) and 19-year-old Alexy Faure Prost (winner of 2023 U23 French road race championships), have a very good chance of quickly turning into more productive veterans they are departing with at a fraction of the cost.
• Despite having a very milquetoast transfer season on the surface, I think one of the more quietly interesting subplots of 2024 is Intermarché being forced to lean into younger, cheaper riders and if they can get back to the overproduction that marked their 2023 instead of the frustrating underperformance that marked 2024.

Spencer Martin authors the cycling-analysis newsletter Beyond the Peloton that breaks down the nuances of each race and attempts to bring a logic-based approach to cycling coverage. He is also a partner in cycling business publication The Outer Line, and in the past, has written for cycling outlets such as Velonews and CyclingTips. He has raced at a high-level in the past and still enjoys participating in a wide variety of races as well as riding in the mountains surrounding his residence in Boulder, Colorado. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at @spencersoward.

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Giro d'Italia boss challenges Tadej Pogačar: 'It’s time for a rider to win the Giro-Tour double'

Mauro Vegni has also questioned what winning the Tour de France for a third time adds to a rider's career

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Giro d'Italia president Mauro Vegni has challenged Tadej Pogačar to attempt to win both the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France in 2022, claiming that his third yellow jersey won't add any extra significance to his career. 

Pogačar has previously stated that he will attempt to win the Giro one day, but is expected to prioritise defending the Tour de France this coming year, with the Vuelta a España a potential second Grand Tour option.

The 62-year-old chairman also argues that most riders don't have the longevity to continue winning significant races, and should therefore tackle the Giro-Tour double while they are at peak performance. 

Vegni told La Gazzetta dello Sport : “I don’t think winning the Tour de France three or four times makes much of a difference to a rider’s career. When you win it once, you’ve proved you’re a great rider and there’s little else to prove.

“These days the riders are much more ready to win great races at a young age than for a long time, even when they’re just 23. It’s a pity that nobody seems to have the desire to try to win the Giro-Tour double. If I’m not wrong, the last was Pantani. So perhaps it’s time for a rider to add their name to that roll of honour.” 

Indeed, Marco Pantani was the last rider to win both the Giro and the Tour in the same year, back in 1998. Chris Froome notably attempted the challenge in 2018, but came up short in the Tour de France after winning the Giro. The Briton finished third in France, unable to recover quickly enough during the month between the two races. 

The 105th edition of the Giro d'Italia was announced last week, taking place across May 2022. The three-week race starts in Budapest, Hungary, before finishing in Verona with a 17.1km time trial - one of only two ITTs out of the 21 stages.

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The route also includes 51,000 metres of climbing, with Vegni claiming this is one of the most difficult Giros in a number of years. 

He said: “It’s clear that this is the one of the hardest routes of the Giro d’Italia of the last few years and one with the most metres of climbing while I’ve been involved in the organising of the race. 

“However it’s also true that the layout of the stages also allows the riders to have their say on every stage, there’s something for everyone. I think there’ll be spectacular racing every day with numerous changes in the race leadership.”

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Ryan is a staff writer for Cycling Weekly, having joined the team in September 2021. He first joined Future in December 2020, working across FourFourTwo, Golf Monthly, Rugby World and Advnture's websites, before making his way to cycling. After graduating from Cardiff University with a degree in Journalism and Communications, Ryan earned a NCTJ qualification to further develop as a writer. 

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Emotional Pogacar claims Liege triumph ahead of Giro-Tour double bid

Liege (Belgium) (AFP) – Tadej Pogacar won the Liege-Bastogne-Liege race on Sunday with a solo break, 30km from home, before dedicating victory to the mother of his girlfriend who died on the eve of the 2022 event.

Issued on: 21/04/2024 - 19:37

Ahead of his Giro d'Italia and Tour de France double bid, the 25-year-old Slovenian blew the opposition away with an acceleration that none could answer on the 254-kilometre race in the Ardennes forests that marks the end of the spring classics.

Paris-Roubaix and Tour of Flanders winner Mathieu van der Poel, bidding to become the first man since the legendary Eddy Merckx in 1975 to win three of the major one-day races in the same season, was a commendable third.

Frenchman Romain Bardet was second, also solo, 1 minute 39 seconds off the pace with Van der Poel leading a bunch home at 2min 2sec.

Pogacar fell in the race last season and suffered a broken wrist, which blighted his Tour de France bid.

"It was an emotional day of riding for me," a drained-looking Pogacar said after raising his arms and pointing to the sky, dedicating victory to the mother of his girlfriend Urska Zigart, also a pro rider.

"Not just because of my hand but also because two years ago just before the race Urska's mother died, so I was riding for her today."

'A beautiful race'

Pogacar also won the Liege-Bastogne in 2021. Sunday was his sixth one-day Monument victory, with three wins at the Tour of Lombardy and a 2023 Tour of Flanders triumph.

"Coming in alone was great. It's really special to come in alone on such a long race. It's a beautiful race and I'm happy to win it again," said the UAE Team Emirates rider.

Pogacar came into the race fresh from altitude training and at the start line said he had "no regrets about not racing la Fleche", referring to the frozen and drenched midweek race in the same region.

"I wore lots of layers today. It's still really cold," said the winner. "I rode hard up the hills, played it safe on the downhills, but at the end I was just suffering," he said of his long winning dash.

This was a seventh win in just 10 days of competitive racing for Pogacar this year. He starts the Giro d'Italia on May 4 in a bid to become the first man to win the Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani in 1998.

He will be making his Giro debut, but he won the Tour de France in 2020 and 2021, and was runner-up to Jonas Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023.

Defending Liege-Bastogne champion Remco Evenepoel, former winner Primoz Roglic and Vingegaard would all have been suited to Sunday's course but all were out injured after a mass fall at the Tour of the Basque Country.

In the women's race a tight finish in downtown Liege was clinched by Australian Grace Brown ahead of Elisa Longo Borghini and Demi Vollering.

Brown had been on a long range escape until a group of pursuers caught up 6km from the end, but then unleashed her remaining energy for a late, winning burst to the line.

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Tadej Pogacar: Slovenian rules out Giro d'Italia-Tour de France-Vuelta a Espana Triple Crown - 'Too crazy'

Published 28/05/2024 at 16:13 GMT

Tadej Pogacar has ruled out competing in the Vuelta a Espana this year after his Giro d’Italia domination. In an interview for Eurosport and the UCI, the Slovenian says “I like new challenges, I’m not closed to anything,” but admits that currently, aiming to conquer three Grand Tours in the same year is “maybe a bit too crazy".

‘a rider for the history books’ - relive pogacar’s stunning 2024 giro d’italia triumph, 'if i arrive with these legs, it's going to be just fine' – pogacar bullish on giro-tour double.

27/05/2024 at 18:50

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'He doesn't need a push!' - Pogacar survives mountain gauntlet as 'silly' fans cause trouble

25/05/2024 at 17:46

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Pogacar wins the Giro d’Italia by a big margin and will now aim for a 3rd Tour de France title

Tour of Italy winner Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar holds the trophy during the podium ceremony at the end of the 21st and last stage of the Giro D’Italia, cycling race, in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar, wearing the pink jersey overall leader, crosses the finish line of the 21st and last stage of the Giro D’Italia, tour of Italy cycling race, in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Cyclists are cheered by fans as they ride past the ancient Colosseum during the final stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (Gian Mattia D’Alberto/LaPresse via AP)

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar, wearing the pink jersey overall leader, flashes the victory sign after crossing the finish line of the 21st and last stage of the Giro D’Italia, tour of Italy cycling race, in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Cyclists, including the pink jersey overall leader Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar, ride past the ancient Colosseum during the final stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

From left, second classified Colombia’s Daniel Felipe Martinez, first classified Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar and third classified Britain’s Geraint Thomas celebrate during the podium ceremony at the end of the 21st and last stage of the Giro D’Italia, tour of Italy cycling race, in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Third classified Britain’s Geraint Thomas celebrates during the podium ceremony at the end of the 21st and last stage of the Giro D’Italia, tour of Italy cycling race, in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar, wearing the pink jersey of the race overall leader, is lifted in celebration by teammates ahead of the start of the final stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race, in front of the Palazzo della Civilta’ Italiana, also known as Colosseo Quadrato (Square Colosseum) in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (Marco Alpozzi/LaPresse via AP)

Belgium’s Tim Merlier celebrates winning the final stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (Gian Mattia D’Alberto/LaPresse via AP)

Cyclists ride past the ancient Colosseum during the final stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (Massimo Paolone/LaPresse via AP)

Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar, 2nd right, wearing the pink jersey of the race overall leader, poses as he waits for the start of the final stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race, in front of the Palazzo della Civilta’ Italiana, also known as Colosseo Quadrato (Square Colosseum) in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (Marco Alpozzi/LaPresse via AP)

Cyclists ride past the ancient Colosseum during the final stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Cyclists ride past the Unknown Soldier monument during the final stage of the Giro d’Italia cycling race, in Rome, Sunday, May 26, 2024. (Fabio Ferrari/LaPresse via AP)

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ROME (AP) — Tadej Pogacar won the Giro d’Italia on Sunday with the race’s biggest margin of victory in nearly six decades — earning a third Grand Tour trophy to go with his two Tour de France titles.

Pogacar, riding a pink bike to go with his pink jersey, shorts and helmet, crossed safely in the main pack to conclude the mostly ceremonial final stage of the three-week race in Rome, ending with an advantage of 9 minutes, 56 seconds over runner-up Daniel Martinez.

Geraint Thomas finished third overall, 10:24 behind.

The last time there was a bigger margin of victory in the Giro came in 1965, when Vittorio Adorni won by 11:26.

Pogacar, a Slovenian with UAE Team Emirates, also won six stages in the race, the most since Eddy Merckx also won six in 1973.

“Winning any bike race is important but winning the Giro, especially like this, is really incredible,” Pogacar said.

Now Pogacar will attempt to rest and recover in time to make an attempt at winning his third Tour title, with cycling’s biggest race starting on June 29 with four stages in Italy.

Pogacar will be attempting to become the first rider to win the Giro and the Tour in the same year since Marco Pantani in 1998.

“This was the big goal for the first part of the season. Now finally I’ll have a bit of rest before the second part, which could be the more important part,” Pogacar said. “We’ll see.”

Belgian rider Tim Merlier won the final stage in a sprint ahead of Jonathan Milan by the Colosseum. It was Merlier’s fourth career win at the Giro and third this year.

Milan, the Italian sprinter who also won three stages in the race, had a mechanical issue and needed to change his bike at the start of the last lap. He then managed to catch up with the main pack and almost grabbed another victory.

The 125-kilometer (78-mile) mostly flat final stage finished with a circuit through the center of the capital that was completed eight times, taking riders past the Baths of Caracalla, the Roman Forum, the Tiber River and the Circus Maximus before the finish on cobblestones near the Arch of Constantine.

Pogacar entered the Giro for the first time this year and made an immediate impact. He finished second in the opening stage in Turin and gained time on almost all of his direct rivals. Then he won the second stage, grabbed the leader’s pink jersey and kept on increasing his advantage day after day.

Pogacar won the Tour in 2020 and 2021 and then finished second behind Jonas Vingegaard in 2022 and 2023.

Vingegaard is hoping to defend his Tour title despite a crash in April that left him with several broken ribs and a collapsed lung.

AP cycling: https://apnews.com/hub/cycling

Tour de France 2024 Rider Power Rankings

Less than a month out from the start of the men’s Tour de France, we ranked the top yellow jersey threats in the peloton.

This is the latest edition of Bicycling’ s Power Rankings for the 2024 Men’s Tour de France, where we rank the top contenders leading up to July’s race. This continuously updated list will give you an in-depth look at the riders that have the best shot to stand atop the podium at the end of the Tour—and how they’re performing in the races leading up to July.

These rankings will be constantly refreshed, so you can see who’s up and who’s down on the road to the 2024 Tour de France.

The 2024 Tour de France was expected to bring together the sport’s four best grand tour riders: Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), winner of the last two Tours de France; Slovenia’s Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), winner of the 2020 and 2021 Tours de France and the recent Giro d’Italia; Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-Quick Step), winner of the 2022 Vuelta a España; and Slovenia’s Primož Roglič (BORA-hansgrohe), a 3-time winner of the Vuelta and the champion at last year’s Giro d’Italia.

Each rider was taking a different route to the Tour de France, with each choosing to mix race days with extended periods of time spent at training camps. And while some of their paths crossed at select races throughout the first few months of the season, they weren’t expected to all race together until the Tour. For fans, it was a dream scenario.

But the dream became a nightmare in early-April after a scary, high-speed crash during Stage 4 of Spain’s Tour of the Basque Country took down several riders, including Vingegaard, Roglič, and Evenepoel. Two of them–Vingegaard and Evenepoel–suffered serious injuries, and all of them had their Tour preparations interrupted.

That was almost eight weeks ago, and they’re all back on their bikes and training again. But with the Tour de France beginning in Florence, Italy just four weeks from Saturday, one big question still remains: Will Vingegaard–who suffered the worst injuries of the three–be on the starting line, and if he is will he have the form he needs to defend his title? This storyline is the one we’ll be watching the most in the month leading up to the start of the Tour, but it’s not the only one.

We’re also excited to see if Pogačar can become the first rider since 1998 to win the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France in the same season (spoiler alert: we think he can). And last but definitely not least, we’re eager to learn which other contenders–if any–will be ready to challenge him.

So with four weeks left before the Tour’s “Grand Depart,” here’s our latest–and perhaps most optimistic–Tour de France contender Power Ranking.

Tadej Pogačar

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Previous Ranking : 1

Race Days : 31

Race Wins : 14

Best Result : 1st-place, General Classification - Giro d’Italia

Next Race: Tour de France, June 29-July 21

With about four weeks until the start of the Tour de France, there are still no questions about who the Tour’s top contender is. Pogačar just wrapped-up a three-week training camp in Italy. You may have heard it–it’s called the Giro d’Italia.

We’re kidding, right? Well, not really. Pog absolutely dominated the Italian grand tour, winning the maglia rosa by almost ten minutes over the next-closest rider on the Giro’s General Classification. Along the way he won six stages–finished second or third on three more–and won the Giro’s King of the Mountains prize. But more importantly, he finished the race healthy and reasonably fresh for a rider who just won a three-week grand tour. 

He only crashed once–near the end of Stage 2 when he flatted and his front wheel slipped out from him. It was a minor fall, and Pogačar quickly quickly got back on his bike and promptly won the stage. Otherwise, he escaped the race injury-free.

He also stayed healthy, which–considering the terrible weather that the race encountered at the beginning of the third week–was another blessing for the Slovenian. Staying safe and healthy during a three-week is often a greater challenge than overcoming the competition, and Pog came through that battle unscathed. 

And speaking of the competition, between a relatively gentle course and a rather weak (sorry, guys) start list, Pogačar was never really pushed to defend his lead. With the exception of the Giro’s two individual time trials, he basically won the race with a series of quick, uphill accelerations that no one else could follow. Then he simply rode a steady tempo to the finish line, extending his advantage as he pedaled. 

Pogačar’s near-perfect Giro–plus the fact that he raced minimally in the months before it–means that he probably ended the Giro stronger than he was when he started it. That’s bad news for the men he’ll be racing against at the Tour de France. 

With the Giro behind him, Pogačar will rest for a week and then head to a ski station in the French Alps for nineteen days of altitude training. He won’t race before the Tour de France, but with a grand tour in his legs, he doesn’t need to. 

At this rate, we’ll be eating some humble pie in late-July. At the beginning of the season, we didn’t have much faith in his chances of winning the Giro and the Tour in the same season. But given the way things are shaping up, now we’ll be more surprised if he doesn’t. 

Primož Roglič

Read the complete analysis.

Previous Ranking : 2

Race Days : 11

Race Wins : 1

Best Result : 1st-place, Stage 1 - Tour of the Basque Country

Next Race : Critérium du Dauphiné, June 2-10

Roglič also went down in the crash that took out Vingegaard and Evenepoel, and like the other two, he abandoned the race immediately. But after a series of medical examinations, BORA-hansgrohe reported that the 34-year-old suffered no major injuries. Compared to the others, the Slovenian dodged bullet.

He was initially expected to take part in Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège last week, but the team changed plans to give him extra time to heal. That was a good call, as the weather in the Belgian Ardennes was atrocious that week, and the risk of getting sick or worse–another crash–just wasn’t worth it. In fact, he probably made more gains by training than he would have by racing. 

The Slovenian spent the past five weeks training–which was always the plan–and now he’s heading to the Critérium du Dauphiné–which starts this Sunday–for his last big test before the Tour de France.

The Dauphiné is essentially an 8-day mini-Tour de France with several stages that mimic key stages from the upcoming Tour. It’s also early enough in the month that riders have time for one more small block of training before the start of the Tour. That makes it a popular dress rehearsal for Tour contenders, and Roglič will be going head-to-head with several of his rivals. And it’s a race he knows well: he won it in 2022. 

That’s why anything worse than a top-5 finish would be bad news for the Slovenian. He doesn’t need to win it; after all, the Dauphiné ends four weeks before the start of the Tour, and he needs to be at his best in July not June. 

But a poor performance against many of the men he’ll be racing against at the Tour will raise some eyebrows, putting even more pressure on a 34-year-old rider who might be staring down his last reasonable chance to win the Tour de France. 

Remco Evenepoel

Previous Ranking : 3

Race Days : 17

Race Wins : 4

Best Result : 2nd place, General Classification - Paris-Nice

Another victim of the crash at the Tour of the Basque Country, Evenepoel broke his right clavicle and scapula in Spain and had surgery a few days later in Belgium to address the broken collarbone. The injury meant the Belgian missed a chance to become only the fourth rider to win Liège-Bastogne-Liège three years in a row. 

But his injuries have healed and he’s been on his bike for several weeks. He even attended a recent training camp with his team in Sierra Nevada. So he’s back on schedule in terms of his training for this summer’s Tour de France. 

This sets Evenepoel up for an important showdown with Roglič–and others–at the Critérium du Dauphiné–the Belgian’s last race before the Tour de France–and the pressure he’ll face there will be intense. 

The winner of the 2022 Vuelta a España, Evenepoel is Belgium’s best chance to win a Tour in several decades (a Belgian hasn’t won the Tour since 1976), so he already carries the weight of a nation of passionate cycling fans on his shoulders.

So there’s really no way for the 24-year-old to come out of the Dauphiné without facing even more pressure: if races well–let’s say, finishes on the podium–everyone will start talking about him as if he’s bound to win the Tour. But a bad Dauphiné will fire up the naysayers, putting the wrong kind of pressure on a rider who sometimes struggles to handle adversity. It’s an unenviable position, but that’s life as when you’re Belgium’s first grand tour winner since 1978. 

Egan Bernal and Carlos Rodriguez

Previous Rankings : 4 (Bernal) and 5 (Rodríguez)

Race Days : 28 (Bernal) and 24 (Rodríguez)

Race Wins : 0 (Bernal) and 2 (Rodríguez)

Best Result : 3rd place, General Classficiation - Volta Ciclista a Catalunya (Bernal) and 1st-place, General Classification - Tour de Romandie (Rodríguez)

Next Race : Tour de France, June 29-July 21 (Bernal) and Critérium du Dauphiné, June 2-10 (Rodríguez) 

We’re hedging our bets with this one because–at the moment–we can’t find a reason to put one ahead of the other. But that could change after the Critérium du Dauphiné, which Rodríguez will be starting this weekend.

The Spaniard flew a bit under the radar at last year’s Dauphiné, but in hindsight he shouldn’t have: he finished ninth overall against some tough competition and won the white jersey as the race’s Best Young Rider. The then-22-year-old went on to finish fifth overall and win a stage at the Tour de France. Perhaps we should have seen it coming.

But Rodríguez won’t sneak up on anyone this year, and his performance will indicate if he’s ready to become a true Tour de France podium contender. If he is, he’ll likely bump Bernal–who last raced in late-April and is currently training in Colombia–down a notch in the team’s leadership hierarchy. And that might not be a bad thing: we like the chances of “Bernal the Dark Horse” better than those of “Bernal the Pre-Tour Podium Contender.” 

Jonas Vingegaard

Previous Ranking : Under Consideration

Race Days : 14

Race Wins : 7

Best Result : 1st-place, General Classification - Tirreno-Adriatico

Next Race : TBD

Given some recent news, we’re optimistically moving the Tour’s two-time defending champion back into our top-5—well, 6 if you consider the INEOS tandem above. 

One of the worst victims of the crash at the Tour of the Basque Country, Vingegaard lay motionless along the side of the road for a few minutes before finally being placed in an ambulance and taken to a local hospital, where tests revealed a broken collarbone and a few cracked ribs. Later the team shared that Vingegaard also suffered a pulmonary contusion and a collapsed lung. He stayed in the hospital for 12 days. 

At first, Visma-Lease a Bike wouldn’t discuss the Dane’s chances of racing the Tour de France. But now they are–albeit in uncertain terms–because Vingegaard is back on his bike and training. He was first spotted on a bike path in Denmark, and this week, he arrived in Tignes, France for altitude training camp.

At the Giro d’Italia last week, his team manager Richard Plugge confirmed that Vingegaard has indeed resumed training but would only head to the Tour if he is 100 percent ready to defend his title. And he didn’t sound as if the possibility of the Dane being ready in time was as far-fetched as it seemed a month ago.  

He won’t ride the Dauphiné, but his teammates racing it will meet him in Tignes afterwards. Things are clearly going better than they were in April for Vingegaard, and we think there’s about a 50% chance that he starts the Tour de France. 

Vingegaard started the season in dominating fashion. In fact, he was so strong that some wondered how he could possibly maintain such a high level of fitness all the way through the Tour. Assuming he’s able to get anywhere close to the form he had before the crash–and he starts the Tour–he’s good enough to break back into our Power Ranking. It’s an optimistic take, but we’re going with it–for now.

Under Consideration

If Vingegaard is ultimately unable to start the Tour de France, American Sepp Kuss (Visma Lease a Bike) –the winner of last year’s Vuelta a España–will likely lead the team instead. Kuss hasn’t raced since the Tour of the Basque Country, but he’s starting the Critérium du Dauphiné this Sunday. With three summit finishes to close out the race, it’s the perfect chance for Kuss to assert himself as a Tour de France contender.

Spain’s Juan Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) is also riding the Dauphiné and likely racing to win it. The 21-year-old finished third at the 2022 Vuelta a España and is set to start his first Tour de France this summer. He’ll be riding in support of Pogačar, but the Spaniard could be a contender himself–both as a domestique (UAE put two riders on the podium last year) and as a back-up plan (should something happen to Pog).

Ecuador’s Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost) has been training since his last race, April’s Liège-Bastogne-Liège. The 31-year-old is racing the Tour de Suisse–which takes place one week after the Dauphiné–as his final race before the Tour. And he’ll be racing with a chip on his shoulder: the reigning Olympic champion was not selected to represent his country at the games this summer. Jhonatan Narváez (INEOS Grenadiers)–who won Stage 1 at the Giro d’Italia–was chosen instead.

Since getting hooked on pro cycling while watching Lance Armstrong win the 1993 U.S. Pro Championship in Philadelphia, longtime Bicycling contributor Whit Yost has raced on Belgian cobbles, helped build a European pro team, and piloted that team from Malaysia to Mont Ventoux as an assistant director sportif. These days, he lives with his wife and son in Pennsylvania, spending his days serving as an assistant middle school principal and his nights playing Dungeons & Dragons.

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‘You need to be a big champion to do so, but it can be done’ says Italian champion

Elisa Longo Borghini has mapped out her ambitions ahead of the upcoming new season to include a focus on the Ardennes Classics in April followed by the Giro d’Italia Donne and Tour de France Femmes , both set for July. 

In an interview with members of the press on Tuesday, Longo Borghini spoke about the strength of her team, Trek-Segafredo, as a unit and the possibility of one rider winning the back-to-back Giro-Tour double in 2022.

“Some men have done it, no? So probably also some women can do it [in 2022]. It depends on who takes the start of the Giro and what she wants from the race," Longo Borghini said.

"I see some riders going into the Giro to have a good block of training, instead of being at altitude [camp], and so it needs to be a race that is worth it. It needs to be a hard Giro where they can actually train hard, instead of choosing to stay home to train at altitude.

"I think it’s possible to [win] the double, you need to be a big champion to do so, but you can do it."

Elisa Longo Borghini: The rouleur of the World Championships Longo Borghini: You had to embrace the chaos in Paris-Roubaix Femmes Longo Borghini and Brand: The leader and lieutenant at the Giro d'Italia Donne

The men’s Giro d’Italia and Tour de France have been won by the same rider in the same season on 10 occasions, and the last rider to have done so was Marco Pantani in 1998. The men’s events are each held across 21 days of racing, and separated by roughly a month, with the Giro d’Italia in May and the Tour de France in July. 

The 2022 Women’s WorldTour calendar will offer the 10-day Giro d’Italia Donne from July 1-10 just ahead of the rebirth of the women’s Tour de France that will be held across eight days from July 24-31. 

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The Giro d’Italia Donne is one of the longest-standing events on the women’s calendar, with the inaugural edition held in 1988, and it will host its 33rd edition next summer. The last ASO-run women’s Tour de France was held between 1984-89. Italian Maria Canins won the Tour in 1985 and 1986 and won the Giro in 1988, which was the first year that the two races were held in the same year. French rider Jeannie Longo dominated the 1987-89 editions of the Tour.

The cancellation of the women's race from the official Tour de France left a gaping hole in the women's calendar for three years, until Pierre Boué created his own version of the event called the Tour Cycliste Féminin in 1992. Italian Fabiana Luperini won both the women’s Giro d’Italia and the Tour Cycliste Féminin in the same years three times in 1995-97, and then won the Giro on two more occasions in 1998 and 2008. Spanish rider Joane Somarriba also won both events in the same year, in 2000, after the French race was renamed Grand Boucle Féminine Internationale.

Although Longo Borghini felt that the Giro-Tour double could be accomplished despite the two events being held back-to-back next July, she hopes that future editions of the Giro d’Italia Donne would follow the men’s event in May.

“It would be great if the Giro could be in May straight after the men’s Giro because it would give a better structure to our calendar. Also, logistically it would be much better,” she said.

“This season is like this and we have to accept it and go out and do everything to be in our best shape for both races, or maybe to go to the Giro having an idea that, in the end, we want to be very strong at the Tour. For me, it’s a prestige to be at the start line of both races and I will not choose only one, at least not this year.”

Unity at Trek-Segafredo

The 30-year-old has been one of the biggest contenders in women’s one-day and stage racing over the last 10 years and has twice finished on the podium at the Giro d’Italia Donne earning second place in 2017 and third place in 2020. She has also won the Tour of Flanders, Strade Bianche, GP de Plouay, twice won Trofeo Alfredo Binda. This year she finished third at Paris-Roubaix, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and in the road race at the Olympic Games.

She confirmed that she will focus on the Ardennes Classics before turning her attention to equally important stage races at the Giro d’Italia Donne and Tour de France Femmes in 2022. 

For Tour de France Femmes, Longo Borghini said that she would like to compete in a more open and aggressive role within her team.

“We finalised the schedule in November, and first of all, the Ardennes Classics are my first goal, and then I will ride the Giro and the Tour, and all the other races will be kind of an opportunity to grab a victory and show up to be there, be aggressive, and race like I always like to do,” Longo Borghini said.

“[Tour de France Femmes] is a big goal and I would like to go there with an open mind and an open role. If you just focus on the overall then maybe you put too much pressure on yourself. It’s good to go there and dive into the race and see what happens each stage, and try to get away with a stage win. It’s going to be very exciting. 

"All of the girls that were at the presentation told me that it’s something really big and the expectations are really high. I want to stand with my feet on the pavement, as we say in Italian, and not fly too much, but to be there fighting all the time, which is the only thing that I am able to do.”

Asked how her team Trek-Segafredo decides on a leadership role for an event given that there are so many accomplished athletes – including Lizzie Deignan, Lucinda Brand and Ellen van Dijk, to name a few – Longo Borghini said that unity is their strength, not any one individual rider.

“Our strength is our unity and we can switch roles during the race pretty easily. The environment is really good and we like to race for each other and with each other, so it is natural who will be the leader and sometimes we decide it during the race.”

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Kirsten Frattini is the Deputy Editor of Cyclingnews , overseeing the global racing content plan.

Kirsten has a background in Kinesiology and Health Science. She has been involved in cycling from the community and grassroots level to professional cycling's biggest races, reporting on the WorldTour, Spring Classics, Tours de France, World Championships and Olympic Games.

She began her sports journalism career with Cyclingnews as a North American Correspondent in 2006. In 2018, Kirsten became Women's Editor – overseeing the content strategy, race coverage and growth of women's professional cycling – before becoming Deputy Editor in 2023.

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Pogacar all but wins Giro d'Italia on debut with another stunning stage victory

BASSANO DEL GRAPPA, Italy (AP) — Twenty down, one to go.

Two-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar all but secured the Giro d’Italia on Saturday on his debut in the Italian grand tour.

Pocagar once again destroyed his rivals in the mountains to claim a sixth stage win out of 20 and extend his already considerable advantage to nearly 10 minutes overall.

He has only Sunday’s mainly ceremonial ride in Rome to confirm the triumph.

“I have never been in Rome before but I’m going to enjoy it for sure," Pogacar said with a smile.

The Slovenian cycling star has dominated the Giro in style.

He was all smiles as he soloed to victory following an attack on Monte Grappa. The UAE Team Emirates rider sat up, waved to the crowds as they roared him on, stretched out his arms and bowed as he crossed the line.

Pogacar finished the 184-kilometer (114-mile) leg from Alpago to Bassano del Grappa 2 minutes, 7 seconds ahead of Valentin Paret-Peintre and Daniel Martinez.

That saw him extend his overall winning advantage to 9:56 over Martinez and 10:24 over third-placed Geraint Thomas.

Pogacar is attempting to the Giro-Tour double this year, a feat that hasn’t been achieved since 1998 by Marco Pantani.

“We had the pink jersey from stage 2, a lot of obligations every day, a lot of things to do all day … today was just another test before summer to see how it is," Pogacar said.

“I wanted to finish the Giro with good mentality, good shape and I think I achieved that. I will enjoy after the Giro and then good preparation.”

Pogacar raised his pink bicycle above his head in celebration.

In all reality, the job was finished about a week ago, so dominant has Pogacar been in his first Giro.

He had said he wanted to win the penultimate stage and there was a feeling of inevitability when he set off less than a third of the way into the second ascent of the first-category climb to Monte Grappa.

There were 5.4 kilometers of the brutal climb remaining and Pogacar was 49 seconds behind leader Giulio Pellizzari, who has emerged as a potential future star at this race despite being the youngest in the Giro.

Pogacar caught Pellizzari within 800 meters and, cheered on by huge crowds and miles ahead of everyone else, he crested Monte Grappa with a lead of 1:35 before stretching that on the mostly downhill finish.

The race will transfer to Rome for the largely processional 125-kilometer (78-mile) final leg through the streets of the capital, ending near the Colosseum.

AP cycling: https://apnews.com/hub/cycling

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Can anyone beat them tadej pogačar confirms ‘scary’ uae tour de france support crew, 'yates is my righthand man, ayuso and almeida are super climbing domestiques': pogačar sees world-class support for giro-tour double bid..

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Tadej Pogačar revealed who will be his support crew at the Tour de France and the firepower is impressive.

Pogačar, speaking on the Watts Occurring podcast, confirmed who will be backing him at UAE Team Emirates as he takes on the yellow jersey just weeks after winning the Giro d’Italia.

According to Pogačar, here they are:

Adam Yates , Juan Ayuso , Joäo Almeida, Marc Soler, Pavel Sivakov, Nils Politt, and Tim Wellens will provide a mix of brawn and climbing finesse as the Slovenian moves toward the second act of the elusive Giro-Tour double .

“It scares me also,” Pogačar said of the names on the list. “Yates is my righthand man, and Ayuso and Almeida are super climbing domestiques.

“Soler, Sivakov are going to be the bigger climbers and they can do something on the flats. Nils Politt and Tim Wellens,” Pogačar said. “It’s a five-star team.”

UAE Team Emirates brass have to reveal the final official list, but Pogačar said these riders have been the A-list since December.

There are no real surprises.

This Le Tour team means business Tadej Pogačar named UAE Team Emirates’ provisional Tour de France line-up on the Watts Occurring podcast. The final team will be confirmed later this month, ahead of the opening stage on June 29. Getty Images pic.twitter.com/XvtuXrj3eC — Road Code (@RoadCode) June 4, 2024

Some have pointed that Brandon McNulty is missing, but the American — who raced the Tour in 2021 and 2022 — never had the Tour on his radar this season.

Mikkel Bjerg, who raced the Tour from 2021-23, rode in support for Pogačar at the Giro. One key rider in previous Tours for UAE who is missing is Vegard Stake Laengen, who raced the Tour from 2019 through 2023, but he also raced the Giro.

Filling into those key domestique spots are newcomers Politt, who have added responsibility on the flats, and Sivakov.

Yates and Soler are the only riders returning from the 2023 Tour lineup alongside Pogačar .

Ayuso, racing this week at Critérium du Dauphiné, said he’s relishing the chance to race to support Pogačar in what will the Spaniard’s Tour debut.

“There’s no one better to learn about the Tour than riding for Tadej,” Ayuso said. “Everyone is excited to try to help him make history.”

Almeida also makes his Tour debut and will also provide massive horsepower for Pogačar in the approaches to the climbs.

Yates, who rode the vapors to finish third overall in last year’s Tour, will also be back in the marquee “super domestique” role that he played perfectly in 2023.

“There are so many rock stars,” Pogačar said on the podcast. “Maybe the Giro was not super famous riders, but the level of everybody was super high.”

‘The Tour de France start is very hard’

Pogačar also revealed that he wanted to race the Giro as soon as his debut season in 2019, but his surprise win in the 2020 Tour forever changed his trajectory.

“I wanted to do the Giro already in 2019 and 2020, but then there was COVID, and I did the Tour and I won it, and no one expected that,” Pogačar said. “After that, it was all about the Tour.

“At some point I needed to do something else, and I cannot do the same calendar every year, it gets a bit tiring,” he said. “I wanted to do the Giro really bad, and I spoke to them about it after the Tour last year.”

After a week off the bike, Pogačar will head to altitude at Isola 2000 to begin his final touches heading toward the June 29 start of the Tour in Florence, Italy.

Pogačar also confirmed he’s working with a new coach Javier Solana, who will join him Saturday high in the French Alps.

Tadej Pogacar confirmed the UAE Team Emirates Tour de France roster on the Watts Occurring, Powered by Eurosport podcast Can anyone stop this team? pic.twitter.com/NLw9eTT7Id — Eurosport (@eurosport) June 4, 2024

Any hints on tactics?

The opening four stages are explosive and on paper favor Pogačar’s style of racing. The opening stage features 4000m of climbing and Sunday’s stage tackles the famed San Luca above Bologna twice before finishing on the flats.

Stage 4 tackles the Col du Galibier, site of Pogačar’s famous “crack” in the 2022 Tour that opened the door for Jonas Vingegaard to win the yellow jersey.

“The Tour start is hard,” Pogačar said. “In Bilbao we were super-aggressive and it backfired a bit, but the shape wasn’t super good last year. I don’t know, we’ll see about the tactics.”

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Tadej Pogačar underlines dominance with biggest Giro d'Italia winning margin in 59 years — and he's not done yet

Analysis Sport Tadej Pogačar underlines dominance with biggest Giro d'Italia winning margin in 59 years — and he's not done yet

Tadej Pogačar has confirmed, once again, everything that we thought we knew.

The Slovenian cyclist is, quite simply, a freak.

By winning the 2024 Giro d'Italia in such emphatic fashion, the 25-year-old wrote himself into the mystic annals of a sport that craves the romantic more than any other.

On the face of it though, there is little to be misty-eyed about.

Pogačar's winning margin of nine minutes and 56 seconds is borderline obscene.

Not since Jan Ullrich won the 1997 Tour de France by nine minutes and nine seconds has a rider claimed victory at a grand tour by over nine minutes.

In fact, Pogačar's winning margin is the biggest at a grand tour since Laurent Fignon won the 1984 Tour by 10:32, the largest at a Giro since Vittorio Adorni in 1965.

His six stage wins is the most by a Giro general classification winner since Eddie Merckx did the same in 1973.

'The best I've raced with': Thomas

Pogačar may have just sealed his third grand tour, but in truth, the Slovenian racks up wins for fun across multiple disciplines and race-types.

He already has six one day Monument victories that has led to some branding him the second coming of Merckx, the most versatile rider of the past half century.

While Merckx was called the Cannibal for his insatiable appetite for victories, Pogačar has been christened the Cannibale Gentile by Gazetta della Sport, the gentle cannibal.

"For me he's the best I've raced with I think," said third-placed finisher and peloton veteran Geraint Thomas.

"And I've raced with a lot of good guys."

The 38-year-old sure has, counting among his one-time teammates five-time Olympic gold medal winner and 2012 Tour de France champion Bradley Wiggins, seven-time grand tour winner Chris Froome and the greatest grand tour sprinter in history, Mark Cavendish.

Thomas, who celebrated his 38th birthday on Saturday's penultimate stage is also a contemporary rival of seven-time grand tour winner Alberto Contador and four-time winner, Primož Roglič.

"He's [Pogačar's] just so versatile and aggressive, and all year round as well.

"It's not just – well, like me, for a couple of months a year where you're good. It's insane how talented he is.

"The only thing is he makes us look pretty slow, but that's the whole peloton, that's not just me."

Pogačar's palmarès already rivals the very best in the sport.

When he won the first of his two Tours de France in 2020 aged 22, he was the youngest winner in 116 years.

His back-to-back victories were only halted by Jonas Vingegaard's emergence as a grand tour specialist .

It is realistically only the Danish rider who stands between Pogačar and a feat not seen in cycling since Marco Pantani managed it in 1998, a Giro-Tour double.

Indeed, Pogačar has already emulated the Italian legend by overcoming a mechanical at the base of the climb to Santuario di Oropa on stage seven , where Pantani did the exact same thing in 1999.

Back to the present though, and two-time defending champion Vingegaard is unlikely to reach the start line in peak condition following his  shocking crash earlier in the season that resulted in a collapsed lung, among other injuries .

"Jonas [Vingegaard] is the only guy that's really on the same level as him," Thomas said.

"But it's yet to be seen how he is.

"The rest – of course, there's always a chance, it's a bike race, but on pure physical talent he's unique."

A three-week long coronation

Sunday's celebratory procession around Rome was Pogačar's coronation but, in truth, much of the preceding three weeks has been little more than a homage to his greatness.

Saturday's penultimate stage was a case in point .

Pogačar burned through his teammates before embarking on a solo ascent of the Monte Grappa — during which he handed out alms in the form of bidons to young roadside admirers and high fives to others, while also chastising those others who dared reach out to him — in an astonishing display of reckless power.

That 18km long climb, with an average gradient of 8.1 per cent was less of an obstacle to overcome and more a ramp towards his inevitable podium.

"I wanted to finish the Giro with a good mentality and in good shape. I think I achieved that," he said at the finish.

His triumphant roll into the finish in Bassano del Grappa, during which he saluted and bowed to an adoring public like the conquering hero he has become, was a worthy tribute to a man who has lit up a race that his own dominance threatened to overshadow.

"Are you not entertained?" was Pogačar's emphatic demand of a people who know they are witnessing majesty.

If they weren't, they should have been.

Pogačar's mix of dashing attacks and solo chases dared those on the roadside to equate his flamboyant dominance to that displayed by the mechanised deployment of Team Sky at the height of their powers.

Those comparisons are moot though. Never has a rider attacked so wilfully, with such regularity, and with such consummate ease over the duration of a race that will go down in history.

Former grand tour winner Sean Kelly said on Eurosport that there has never been a rider like him, "He has got everything."

'Pog is on a different planet'

Pogačar has held such mastery over his rivals at the Giro that he has seemingly been racing against himself — and everyone knows it.

"People were giving the GC guys and me abuse for just racing amongst ourselves," Thomas said on his podcast, Watts Occurring, during the second week of the race.

"To put it in perspective, anyone out there that's a runner, if your best 10k run is 40 minutes, if you start off at 30 minute pace for 20 minutes, just see what happens.

"You're going to blow your doors off, you're going to creep in, and you'll do 49 minutes rather than 40.

"That's what it was like today [on stage 15], I could try and stay with him [Pogačar], but I knew I didn't have the legs, especially with the altitude and everything.

"You can completely blow your doors off.

"It sounds defeatist, but at the end of the day, Pog is on a different planet."

Tour tilt on the cards

So who can stop this seemingly unstoppable Slovene sensation?

Three weeks is a long time to race, and the cumulative fatigue of dominating a race to the extent that he has — with the added effect of daily post-race press conferences — may yet take its toll when it comes to a mountainous Tour de France later in the year.

Then there is the scrutiny that inevitably follows the world's best cyclist.

Cycling's very history demands a thorough introspection about what is being witnessed.

Too often in the sport's chequered past have things that appeared too good to be true turned out to be exactly that.

It's why the most astonishing of performances have been met with the caveat of a raised eyebrow and knowing wink.

There's no suggestion that what Pogačar is doing is fuelled by anything other than natural talent.

The Slovene is undisputedly a generational star. What happens next will be thrilling to watch.

The ABC of SPORT

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