Despite a recent Covid, Tadej Pogacar advances as the big favorite of the 111th Tour de France to regain his crown from a Jonas Vingegaard in mysterious form and achieve an unprecedented Giro-Tour double in the 21st century.
The 111th edition of the Tour de France starts this Saturday from Florence and it was difficult to find a more enchanting setting than the cradle of the Renaissance, the city of the Medici, Botticelli, Machiavelli and Donatello, where palaces and museums compete in beauty, to celebrate the first start from Italy in the more than century-old history of the event.
A Tour with six superstars
The casting is up to the occasion since we will see for the first time at the start of a bike race the six superstars of cycling – Pogacar, Vingegaard, Primoz Roglic, Remco Evenepoel, Mathieu van der Poel and Wout Van Aert.
Since the unveiling in October of the route, which will end on July 21 in Nice, again a big first because of the Olympics, we have been salivating at the prospect of seeing the first four, “the fantastic four”, battling for the yellow jersey. Each with a story to tell.
For Evenepoel, it is that of “exploration” as the Belgian prodigy says, who waited until he was 24 to discover the Tour.
For Roglic, it is the opportunity for sweet revenge, four years after being dispossessed of the yellow jersey by Pogacar on the penultimate day.
For Vingegaard, it is the stake of a third consecutive coronation, like Louison Bobet, Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain and Chris Froome.
Tadej Pogacar with the strongest team by far in the Tour de France: UAE, “it’s Real Madrid”
But one challenge surpasses all the others and it is up to Pogacar to take it up: winning the Tour of Italy and the Tour de France in the same year, a feat only achieved by seven riders in history, the last time by Marco Pantani in 1998.
Since then, it has been considered an almost impossible task and the last to really try it was Chris Froome, winner of the Giro in 2018, then third in the Tour, at the end of his strength.
Jonas Vingegaard in the dark
Today, the Briton is convinced: “If there is one who can do it, it’s Pogacar. I finished on my knees. Even if he flew over the Giro, Tadej was able to save himself much more. He has a very good chance.”
At the end of the Giro, the 25-year-old Slovenian, who can rely on a UAE team that looks like a Dream Team (Yates, Ayuso, Almeida…), himself announced his colours by saying he had “never felt so good on a bike”.
“If he stays safe and sound, he will be unbeatable,” Evenepoel concluded on Thursday, a few minutes before Pogacar pointed out that he had contracted Covid ten days ago, a threat that is once again hanging over the Tour.
Enough to instill a slight doubt? “I am fully recovered,” assured “Pogi”.
Until proven otherwise, uncertainty first surrounds the state of form of his three main rivals, all swept away in the same collective fall at the beginning of April at the Tour of the Basque Country.
Roglic, the least affected, seems the most ready and has just won the Dauphiné.
Evenepoel, who suffered fractures to his shoulder blade and collarbone, has set unusually cautious goals: “A stage victory and the best possible overall ranking.”
As for Vingegaard, he himself does not know what to expect after twelve days of hospitalization in April for fractures and a pneumothorax, and almost three months without racing, “the most difficult of my career.”
AFP
Tour 2024: the list of teams and riders
(Click on the infographic to enlarge it)
