(Paris) Big favorite for the Tour of Italy, Tadej Pogacar takes on the immense challenge of winning the Giro and the Tour de France in the same year, an unprecedented feat for 26 years.
No one since Marco Pantani in 1998 has achieved this tour de force which consists of linking two three-week odysseys for 42 stages and 6892 kilometers in total.
Fausto Coppi, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain achieved the double twice. But cycling has become so competitive that the endeavor is now considered almost impossible, and the few who have tried it, like Alberto Contador or Chris Froome, have failed.
“The Giro-Tour double is very difficult to achieve,” warns Indurain. You have to know how to measure your efforts”, which is not exactly Pogacar’s strong point who wants to win all the races in which he takes part.
“You have to be perfect for 21 days, 20 is not enough. One bad day can change everything,” insists Italian Vincenzo Nibali, winner of the Tour in 2014 and the Giro in 2013 and 2016, who particularly points to the often difficult weather conditions at the Giro.
The recent falls which decimated the peloton also served as a reminder that cycling remains a sport particularly exposed to hazards, as Pogacar himself experienced through a broken hand during Liège-Bastogne-Liège last year.
Modest competition
But the elders also agree that if a runner can achieve the double, it is Pogacar, the most complete runner in the world, who arrives with meticulous preparation and exudes health with seven victories in just ten days of racing. race in 2024, including three demonstrations at the Strade Bianche, the Tour of Catalonia and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
The Slovenian’s shares are even on the rise since the serious fall of Jonas Vingegaard who was not expected in the Giro, but who promised to be the favorite for a third consecutive coronation in the Tour de France. Very damaged, the Dane is not even sure of participating in the Grande Boucle (June 29-July 21) where we also expect Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel.
At the Tour of Italy, less mountainous than usual (7,000 m less altitude difference than in 2023), Pogacar has a significant margin over more modest competition.
In truth, we don’t see who could worry him.
Ben O’Connor, Geraint Thomas, second last year, Cian Uijtdebroeks and Romain Bardet are among the main outsiders, but they are playing a notch below, while two other French leaders, Christophe Laporte and Julian Alaphilippe, will mainly chase the steps.
Pogacar is even such a favorite that some see him wearing the pink jersey from start to finish, like Gianni Bugno in 1990 and Eddy Merckx in 1973, while the hilly first stage on Saturday between Venaria Reale and Turin is likely to suit him.
The “GOAT”?
Pogacar, for his part, says he will first wait in what state he will come out of the Giro before wanting to think about the double when, casually, he has not won a Grand Tour since his second Tour de France in 2021.
What interests him immediately is above all pinning a new event to his hunting list. “I want to tick them all off,” underlines the UAE leader who already has 70 victories at only 25 years old.
In March, he admitted for the first time that, yes, he aspired to “become the best ever.”
In terms of results, he is still far from Eddy Merckx (11 Grand Tours, 19 Monuments, while he has 2 and 6). But for his contemporaries his domination and the imprint he left on his time were those of a cannibal, the nickname of the Belgian legend.
“For me, Pogacar plays in the same category as Merckx,” assures the British Geraint Thomas, winner of the Tour in 2018, in his podcast. » His track record and his way of running are just phenomenal. He has the pedigree of a GOAT “(greatest of all time).
If the comparison remains daring, a double for Pogacar in the Giro and the Tour would place the question at the center of debates for years to come.
Behind Pogacar, five runners to follow
Behind Tadej Pogacar, big favorite for the Tour of Italy, five riders, determined to defy the predictions or to shine on their terrain, will be particularly ones to watch from Saturday.
Geraint Thomas, the veteran’s ambition
Winner of the 2018 Tour de France, the Welsh veteran will celebrate his 38the birthday on the eve of arrival on May 26 in Rome. But he is still in the game as proven by his second place last year, robbed of the pink jersey by Primoz Roglic in the penultimate stage only, on the terrible slopes of Monte Lussari. The leader of Ineos arrives as usual after targeted preparation (13e of the Tour of the Alps) and says he is even better than in 2023 when he was ill in the spring. “Obviously, Pogacar is the big favorite, but that also takes all the pressure off and I am ready to take on the challenge,” underlines “G” who, like the Slovenian, plans to double the Giro and Tour de France.
Cian Uijtdebroeks, the baptism of fire of the young wolf
Primoz Roglic left for Bora, Jonas Vingegaard convalescing and Sepp Kuss preserved in view of the Tour de France, the Visma-Lease a bike team, which had won the three great Tours with these three men last year, bet for this Giro on his young Belgian nugget. It’s a real baptism of fire for the 21-year-old rider who joined the Dutch armada this winter with a noise like broken dishes, against a backdrop of conflict with his former team Bora. Eighth in the last Vuelta, he is competing in only his second Grand Tour with the Top 10 as a cautious objective. Rather discreet at the start of the season (5e at the Gran Camino, 7e of Tirreno-Adriatico), the winner of the Tour de l’Avenir 2022 will this time be the center of attention. He will be notably assisted by the Frenchman Christophe Laporte who replaces Wout Van Aert, in the recovery phase.
Nairo Quintana, the return of the outcast
Ten years after his victory and seven years after his second place, the 34-year-old Colombian returns to the roads of the Giro with much lower ambitions. Relaunched this winter by the Movistar team after a year in purgatory following his positive test for tramadol during the 2022 Tour de France, he had a “complicated” start to the season by his own admission. Positive for COVID-19 on the Tour of Colombia, he then fell heavily on the Tour of Catalonia (displacement of the clavicle) and expects to “suffer”. Rather than the general, the “Condor” will aim for a stage victory. Since his return to the peloton, he has also had to face the hostility of some of his colleagues like Luke Rowe who, in his joint podcast with Geraint Thomas, called him a “rat”, a passage deleted Since. Faced with these criticisms, Quintana evoked the fable of the deaf frog to continue “moving forward with my chest swollen with pride”.
Romain Bardet, the Indian summer of the French climber
“Best of the rest” behind Pogacar on Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Auvergne climber is, at 33, experiencing a flamboyant twilight when he could end his career at the end of the season. The leader of the DSM team would sign to repeat the same performance at the Giro where he is coming for the third time after a 7e place in 2021 and a heartbreaking retirement in 2022, ill when he was fourth overall and in resplendent form. He says he wants to “fight for victory in the mountain stages and see where that can take him in the general classification”.
Filippo Ganna, the wheeler’s impatience
Italy doesn’t really have a runner capable of fighting with Pogacar for the overall – young Antonio Tiberi remains for the moment best known for having shot down the San Marino Tourism Minister’s cat last year – but has a of the best riders on the planet with Ganna. World time trial champion in 2020 and 2021, the Ineos racing car finally hopes to return to its national Tour where its sixth and last stage victory dates back to 2021. It has two shooting windows with the times of the 7e and the 14e stage. The hour record holder will then skip the Tour de France to better prepare for the Paris Olympic Games where he will aim for gold in the time trial and in the team pursuit on the track.
reference: www.lapresse.ca