Slovenian on Zürich Worlds and accepting the doubts faced by a Tour winner
Tadej Pogačar achieved massive success on Sunday in Nice with a sixth Tour de France stage win, as he got the Giro-Tour double(Image credit: Laurent Cipriani / POOL / AFP / Getty Images)
It had to be him. The most novel finale to the Tour de France in the race’s history still contrived to produce the most predictable of endings, as Tadej Pogačar cruised to his sixth stage victory to crown a crushing overall win.
When the concluding Nice time trial was confirmed two years ago, ASO doubtless dreamt of a repeat of 1989 and all that, when Greg LeMond snatched yellow from Laurent Fignon at the last. There was simply no way, however, of Pogi-proofing this year’s race. The Slovenian has simply been on another level to all comers in 2024, divesting the grand finale of all suspense.
Indeed, Pogačar also achieved the remarkable feat of winning the last three stages of this Tour. The UAE Team Emirates rider ended the race as a contest with his solo effort at Isola 2000 on Friday and then he hammered home the point by sprinting past Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) to win again on the Col de la Couillole.
Pogačar entered Sunday’s time trial from Monaco to Nice already armed with a lead of more than five minutes on Vingegaard. Some wondered if Pogačar would take his foot off the gas here. No chance. Instead, he delivered another high-octane display, beating his rival by 1:03 to stretch his final winning margin out to 6:17.
For the past two years, Pogačar had stood on the second step of the podium on the Champs-Élysées, watching as Vingegaard was feted in the yellow jersey. The roles were reversed on Nice’s Place Masséna on Sunday evening, where Pogačar claimed his third title and also became the eighth rider in history to win the Giro d’Italia and Tour in the same year.
“I cannot describe how happy I am,” Pogačar said before the podium ceremony. “I had two hard years in the Tour de France, always some mistakes. And this year, everything to perfection. I’m out of words, I’m super happy to win here, it’s incredible.”
The setting may have been unfamiliar for the Tour, but Pogačar, a resident of Monaco, had detailed knowledge of the route of the final stage, which took in his and his partner Urška Žigart’s training roads along the Côte d’Azur.
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The very Olympic Games that created this Nice finale are just five days away, but Pogačar had no thought of sparing himself for Paris here. At one point on the drop into Nice, with the Tour and the stage long since won, the speedometer on the motorbike behind him hit 93 kph.
“In my head I could hear Urška saying that she hates me for doing this road all the time in training,” Pogačar said. “We did it so many times this year, so I said I would not waste it. I would keep it under control, but I would not waste the preparations for today.”
Double
Pogačar has been hailed as the greatest rider of his generation – and the greatest since Eddy Merckx or Bernard Hinault – more or less since he coasted to his second Tour victory in 2021. Since then, however, it had begun to appear that Vingegaard had his number in the month of July, much like Rafa Nadal’s superiority over Roger Federer on the clay courts of Roland-Garros.
Last winter, when Pogačar announced his decision to attempt the Giro-Tour double in 2024, the corsa rosa had the feel of an insurance policy given Vingegaard’s pre-eminence in the previous two summers. Nobody had achieved the double since the late Marco Pantani in 1998, and even some of those who attempted it successfully intimated that they had produced their best performances of the year in Italy.
Pogačar somehow seemed to be the exception to the rule. UAE Team Emirates sports manager Matxin Joxean Fernandez confirmed to Cyclingnews in Nice what the stratospheric climbing times on this Tour had suggested – Pogačar’s level in July was another rung above his dominant Giro display.
“I think this is the first Grand Tour where I was totally confident every day,” Pogačar said. “Even in the Giro I remember I had one bad day. I won’t tell which one. This year, the Tour de France was just amazing, I was enjoying from day one until today.
“If I only won the Giro, that would already be an incredible year. But to win the Tour is another level. And to win the two of them together is another level above that level.”
In France, as in Italy, Pogačar racked up six stage wins, including five in the leader’s jersey. All told, the 25-year-old has racked up an astounding 21 victories so far this season – ‘so far’ being the operative expression. As well as the Paris Olympics, Pogačar confirmed that he had designs on the World Championships in Zürich, and a Triple Crown previously achieved only by Merckx, Stephen Roche and Annemiek van Vleuten.
“[Mathieu] van der Poel looks really good in the world champion’s jersey but this year I want to take it from him,” said Pogačar. “We will see, but I want one time the rainbow jersey on my back. But I still have time for that.”
Doubts
Tadej Pogačar addresses the crowd in Nice from the top step of the GC podium, runner-up Jonas Vingegaard on his right and Remco Evenepoel, third place, on his left (Image credit: DAVID PINTENS / BELGA MAG / Belga via AFP / Getty Images)
The Tour winner’s speech is a tradition that was inaugurated almost two decades ago for Lance Armstrong. His 2005 victory, like the six that preceded it, was rescinded, but his speech admonishing the “cynics and the sceptics” has endured in infamy.
The men who have succeeded him have all opted for rather humbler and conciliatory orations, some opting for humour, others displaying raw emotion. Pogačar is so accustomed to winning that he was never likely to respond to another Tour victory with tears. Instead, he had smiling words of praise for his rivals and the race they produced when he was handed the microphone on the podium, with Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel by his side.
“I must say how happy I am to win this Tour, how crazy the journey was, how crazy the battles were with Jonas and Remco and Primož [Roglič],” Pogačar said. “It was one of the craziest Tours in history. We were witnessing a whole lot of things on this Tour de France.”
After thanking the organisation, Pogačar turned his attention to the fans, and in particular towards the sea of Slovenian flags fluttering on Place Masséna.
“You’re the best, thank you, eh,” Pogačar smiled, and they responded in kind: “Pogi, Pogi, Pogi.”
Shortly afterwards, Pogačar was swept off towards the makeshift studio of France TV, where he again downplayed the idea that he had started this Tour intent of proving a point against Vingegaard.
“I wouldn’t say it was revenge,” said Pogačar, who proceeded to indicate that he would target the Tour and the Vuelta a España in 2025.
His final formal commitment of the 2024 Tour was the winner’s press conference, held in the media centre at the nearby Palais des Expositions. The ground covered largely echoed what had been covered by television stations in the mixed zone – the double, the rivalry with Vingegaard, his future plans – and Pogačar’s demeanour relaxed throughout. “I’m super tired,” he smiled at one point.
One of Pogačar’s longest responses came when he was asked about the suspicion engendered by his remarkably high level of performance on this Tour, where he set a number of climbing records. Like Vingegaard before him, the Slovenian acknowledged that a Tour winner could never be entirely free of suspicion.
“There will always be doubts, for sure, because cycling was so much damaged in the past, before my time,” Pogačar said. “In any sport, in any situation of life, if somebody is winning there’s always jealousy, there’s always haters. If you don’t have haters, then you’re not succeeding. There will always be someone who talks bad about someone.
“In cycling, WADA and the UCI invested a lot of money and time to make this sport clean. I think this is one of the cleanest sports in the whole world because of what happened so many years ago. I tell you now, it’s not worth it. I think taking anything that can risk your health or your heart is super stupid. You can cycle until you’re 35, but there’s a long way to enjoy life afterwards. It would be stupid to do this and risk your life for stupid racing.”
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Barry Ryan was Head of Features at Cyclingnews. He has covered professional cycling since 2010, reporting from the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and events from Argentina to Japan. His writing has appeared in The Independent, Procycling and Cycling Plus. He is the author of The Ascent: Sean Kelly, Stephen Roche and the Rise of Irish Cycling’s Golden Generation, published by Gill Books.
