Tour de France: will this year’s race be the Tadej Pogacar show once again, or can Jumbo pair challenge Slovenian
- Roglic and Vingegaard came second to arch-rival Tadej Pogacar in 2020 and 2021, but insist the 23-year-old Slovenian can be beaten by their united front
- Pogacar heads into the race as odds-on favourite and now has a much stronger support team around him
When professional cycling restarted following the first Covid-19 lockdowns in summer 2020 with a condensed season of highlights, things had changed. It seemed as if tradition and the rule book had been tossed out of the team car’s window.
It was game on; a free for all, with younger riders no longer accepting their traditional long-term apprenticeship roles.
Leading this youthful revolution was 21-year old Slovenian Tadej Pogacar of UAE Team Emirates. Going into that Tour he had been listed as a support rider for team leader and veteran Fabio Aru, but when the Italian fell short Pogacar stepped up in fine style.
In 2020 Pogacar dominated the race, not unlike the great Eddy Merckx had done back in the 1970s, and justly so comparisons between the two have been drawn ever since.
Some saw Pogacar’s 2020 victory as a fluke, something that jumped out of a mixed up time in the world. Determined to prove everyone wrong he went head-to-head with Primoz Roglic in the 2021 Tour, although Roglic suffered two crashes in the opening week.
The resulting injuries ultimately ended his race, leaving Pogacar with no main rival for the title – or so it seemed.
As Pogacar stamped his authority on the Tour so Jumbo-Visma switched their leadership attention to the mild mannered young Dane Jonas Vingegaard, a man known to lack self belief, and yet a rider who would run Pogacar a close second overall.
