Paris (Reuters) – Tadej Pogacar will likely be the man to beat as he targets his third consecutive Tour de France title when the race units off on Friday, with the 23-year-old Slovenian wanting to develop into one in every of the sport’s all-time nice riders.
Dubbed the “Baby Cannibal” for his similarities to former five-time winner Eddy “The Cannibal” Merckx, Pogacar has already received the UAE Tour, the Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour of Slovenia stage races this season as properly as the Strade Bianche one-day basic.
Only the Jumbo-Visma staff armada appear ready to dent Pogacar’s armour. The Dutch outfit has two leaders – Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic and final 12 months’s runner-up Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark – in a staff that additionally boasts the formidable Wout van Aert.
They will likely be making an attempt to management the race and isolate Pogacar, who has already proven that he fears no-one on any terrain. He will want to present that fearlessness once more in the first few days when the winds in Denmark and the cobbles of northern France might show treacherous.
He might even acquire time on his fundamental rivals on these levels earlier than the race reaches the mountains, the place he proved nearly unbeatable final 12 months.
“It will likely be undoubtedly be an thrilling battle between him and the Jumbo Visma staff,” Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme informed Reuters.
The Tour returns to La Planche des Belles Filles, the place Pogacar snatched the total lead from Roglic in dramatic style in a time trial on the penultimate day of the 2020 race, whereas the punishing Col du Granon and L’Alpe d’Huez and its well-known 21 hairpins additionally await.
The two time trials, the inaugural 13.2-km effort in Copenhagen and the remaining 40.7-km take a look at in Rocamadour earlier than the remaining day’s procession to Paris, should not anticipated to unsettle Pogacar both.
Ineos-Grenadiers, who received seven out of eight Tour titles from 2012 earlier than Pogacar seized energy, could have possibilities with Adam Yates, Dani Martinez and Geraint Thomas in the staff, however none of them individually are a match for the formidable Slovenian all-rounder.
France, in the meantime, remains to be ready for its first Tour de France winner since Bernard Hinault in 1985, and there may be little indication that he could have a successor this 12 months.
Thibaut Pinot, who got here agonisingly shut in 2019 earlier than retiring injured in the remaining week, is again to a respectable stage of efficiency however he shouldn’t be anticipated to be a critical contender.
The Groupama-FDJ rider will go for stage wins and presumably the polka-dot jersey for the mountains classification in a possible duel with fellow Frenchman Romain Bardet, a shock participant after he withdrew sick from the Giro d’Italia.
World champion Julian Alaphilippe was not picked by his Quick Step Alpha Vinyl staff as he has solely simply returned to racing following a freak crash in April.
Also absent from the Belgian staff’s roster is Mark Cavendish, which means the British rider will miss out on a likelihood to beat Merckx’s report of 34 Tour stage wins, having matched that report finally 12 months’s race.
The race will begin underneath one other cloud of doping suspicions after police searched the properties of riders and workers of Team Bahrain Victorious on Monday.
French prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation into doping allegations towards Bahrain Victorious after police searched the staff’s resort late in final 12 months’s race, once they received three levels.
At the time, the prosecutor’s workplace in Marseille mentioned the investigation was into “acquisition, transport, possession, import of a prohibited substance or prohibited technique to be used by an athlete with out medical justification”.
(Reporting by Julien Pretot; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
