Pogačar turns from Baby Cannibal to Colossus after third Tour de France win

Yellow jersey Slovenian rider Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates celebrates with his partner Urska Zigart after he wins the 21st stage of the 2024 Tour de France cycling race. (Photo: EPA-EFE / LAURENT CIPRIANI / POOL)

By Reuters

21 Jul 2024

Tadej Pogačar became the first rider to achieve the Giro d’Italia/Tour de France double since 1998 when he claimed his third Tour title on Sunday.

Battered and bruised in the two previous editions, Tadej Pogačar made his return to the top of the Tour de France podium with a loud, big bang on Sunday, 21 July 2024, to cement his place among the cycling greats.

The Slovenian became the first to win both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour in the same season since the late Marco Pantani in 1998 – in brutal, ruthless fashion as he crushed defending champion Jonas Vingegaard, whom he beat by six minutes and 17 seconds.

“I’m super happy. I cannot describe how happy I am after two hard years in the Tour de France, always some mistakes and this year, everything to perfection,” said Pogačar.

Pogačar won the 33.7km individual time trial from Monaco to Nice in a time of 45 minutes and 24 seconds, destroying his rivals with a gap of one minute and three seconds over Vingegaard, winner of the last two Tours.

The winner could easily have played it safe having started the final day with a commanding lead over Vingegaard, but once again he showed no mercy and from the off he went for the stage win, his third in a row, to finish the Tour in style.

Eritrea’s Biniam Girmay won the green jersey for the points classification with Richard Carapaz of Ecuador taking the polka dot jersey for the mountains classification.

Pogačar’s UAE Team Emirates won the team classification, while Remco Evenepoel, who won the stage seven time trial, took the white jersey for the best young rider in his first Tour, finishing 9:18 behind the winner.

Yellow jersey Slovenian rider Tadej Pogačar of UAE Team Emirates celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 21st stage of the 2024 Tour de France cycling race over 33km individual time trial from Monaco to Nice, 21 July 2024. (Photo: EPA-EFE / GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO)

Better preparation

Last year, Pogačar paid the price for a preparation that was disrupted by a crash in April, and this time, it was Denmark’s Vingegaard who entered the race diminished after sustaining broken ribs and a collapsed lung three months before the start in Florence.

Vingegaard made a good impression in the opening week, but Pogačar hit him hard every time he could and it quickly became evident that the rider who drew comparisons with the great Eddy Merckx would come closer to the Cannibal.

It would now be unfair to call Pogačar just the Baby Cannibal. In three weeks from Florence, Italy, to Monaco, Pogačar has taken on a new dimension.

His swashbuckling style and take-no-prisoner approach have given him titles in all three grand tours and in three of the five Monument classics, and won him the hearts of the fans.

While Merckx won five Tours and the Giro five times as well and claimed all five Monuments, it came at a time when cycling was not yet globalised.

“We could have made a whole peloton with the new Merckxes,” Merckx himself said.

“This one’s different. If you want me to predict a career similar to mine, I’d say yes. He started winning at a very young age, and I sense a huge desire in him to win everything.”

True heir

“There’s a rage whenever he’s on a bike. I like that. Yes, I’m really saying it, and not to please those who ask me: Pogačar is my true heir,” said Merckx.

“If there’s any room for improvement, it’s in the time trial, where he can still take time. And later on, he’ll have to put on a bit of weight if he wants to win Paris-Roubaix.”

Pogačar has been ticking all the boxes since he started, notably winning the 2018 Tour de l’Avenir, a year before he turned professional.

He then won Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Giro di Lombardia and the Tour of Flanders, coming third in Milan Sanremo this year. While Paris-Roubaix, the Queen of the Classics, seems out of reach because of his light weight, Pogačar is by far the most successful road rider of his era.

And there could be more to come.

No rider has won all three grand tours in a single season. Given Pogačar’s domination, why should the Slovenian not give it a try?

“I’m not sending him [to the Vuelta a España]. It would be too much stress to do a third grand tour with the goal of winning,” said the UAE Emirates team manager.

“Sure, if he won he would do something unique, but I have to pay for it in the coming years too. I don’t want to risk melting him. And if I burn him? Then you know, if he were to win they would criticise us saying we are greedy.”

Pogačar’s hunger, however, could be satisfied at the Olympics, where he will be among the top favourites in the road race on 3 August.

Outside Paris

The Tour finished outside Paris for the first time in its 121-year history, due to the upcoming Olympic Games, and it was the first time the Tour ended with a time trial since 1989 when Greg LeMond overtook Laurent Fignon on the final day.

This was never going to be as dramatic, however, given Pogačar’s emphatic lead and domination of the race.

Pogačar led since winning stage four, extending the gap to more than three minutes after taking stages 14 and 15 before another two successive victories on stages 19 and 20 all but confirmed his overall win.

On stage 11, Vingegaard held off Pogačar to take the victory, and moved ahead of Evenepoel into second place after finishing runner-up to Pogačar on stage 14.

Evenepoel had hoped to repeat his earlier time trial stage win, but was soon overtaken by Vingegaard at the first intermediate checkpoint, but once Pogačar set off, it was clear he had the stage victory in mind, to show his utter domination of the Tour.

No rider has completed the Giro/Tour double since the late Marco Pantani, and Pogačar became only the eighth rider to achieve the feat after also winning six stages on his way to winning the Giro.

“I think this is the first Grand Tour where I was totally confident every day; even in the Giro I remember I had one bad day. I won’t tell which one,” said Pogačar.

“This year’s Tour de France was just amazing and I was enjoying it since day one until today.” DM

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Better preparation

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