Three days before the start of the Tour de France, Tadej Pogacar has already won his race according to several former Tour winners, with Jonas Vingegaard not seeming able to compete.
For the past three years, the Tour de France has been mainly about the duel at the top between Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar. In the last two years, the battle between the two men has been particularly thrilling and Act IV, which is set to take place from this weekend, was particularly anticipated. All the more so since Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel are set to join the fight between the two men.
But for Miguel Indurain Hinault, five-time winner of the Tour de France, the duel between the two men should come to an end. Consequence of the insolent form displayed by Tadej Pogacar on the Giro and the uncertainty which weighs over Jonas Vingegaard, two and a half months after his terrible fall on the Tour of the Basque Country which had earned him fifteen days of hospitalization.
“Everything speaks in favor of Tadej Pogacar, he told Catalan radio. He was in exceptional form during the Giro d’Italia and I don’t think he’s been drawing on his resources. He’s just needed to keep that form going in the last few weeks. And he looks all the more superior to the rest because Jonas Vingegaard hasn’t raced for two and a half months. And the Tour is starting very strongly. He’ll have to be ready straight away. Add to that a UAE team that’s probably superior to the others and barring a crash, he’ll be untouchable.”
“He’s going to do the double, he’s going to do it! »
The Spaniard nevertheless found a reason for hope for the competitors. “If the Giro has dulled him a little, Tadej Pogacar, who is never stingy with his efforts, could be less imperial during the third week. And conversely, Jonas Vingegaard could gain momentum during the Tour. But he must not have lost too much ground when attacking the final straight, which we can doubt”he added.
And Miguel Indurain is not the only one to give Tadej Pogacar a winning run. The same is true of another five-time winner of the Tour, Bernard Hinault, still the last Frenchman to have won the Grande Boucle, 39 years ago. « IHe’s going to do the double, he’s going to do it! thus hit the Badger with Eurosport. Who will be in front? Vingegaard injured? Not injured, but coming back from an injury… We have to see what happened last year, he whispered at Eurosport. Pogacar breaks his wrist during Liège-Bastogne-Liège. He fights like a rag for a while and he has two days off. And when we see Pogacar’s performance at the Tour of Italy…”
