Aren’t you happy? Hat-trick. Tadej Pogacar officially ended two years of Danish reign by winning his third Tour de France on Sunday night in Nice, at the end of a time trial devoid of all the dramatic substance that the organizers had dreamed of for this singular finale. Pogi loves the spectacle but still prefers the efficiency of the very rough blockbuster to the uncertain outcome of the arthouse film awarded at the Venice Film Festival. In this respect, seeing the Slovenian kill the Tour at the first opportunity – despite a promising resistance from Jonas Vingegaard in the first week – was anything but a surprise. And then, oh, they weren’t so bad, these crumbs of suspense: the Italian public wouldn’t have spat on them during the Giro.
The ease with which Pogacar achieved the Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double, the first of its kind since Pantani in 1998, almost erases the grandeur of the accomplishment. Worse, he aroused suspicion and woke up Lance Armstrong who would advise him to “keep a low profile” in the 3rd week rather than seek a childish humiliation (cheeky coming from the Texan). A warning totally ignored by the tyrant of Komenda the next day, on the climb of Isola 2000. What can you do, he can’t help it, Pogi “loves challenges” as he confided after his victory at the Giro. We have a small one for him: the unprecedented triple. The Grand Slam Italy, France, Spain. Dare you?
By the end of May, it was out of the question. “I can assure you that the Giro-Tour-Vuelta triplet is not on the agenda this year. Winning every Grand Tour is a major goal for me, but to do it in the same year… That might be a bit too crazy.” By mid-July, it becomes “there is a 99% chance that I will not be at the Vuelta.” The most optimistic will see this as an open door by invoking a great Brazilian mathematician who once said: 1% chance, 99% faith.
Arming ourselves with (bad) faith and putting the Olympic Games aside, we will tell you without trembling that the planets are perfectly aligned to allow the leader of UAE to achieve the improbable.
> An easy Giro: “The Giro on average is 50,000m of positive elevation gain,” emphasizes Steve Chainel, consultant for Eurosport. “This year we were on 40,000, that is to say almost 20% less in terms of elevation gain. So it was an easy Giro.”
> Moldy competition in Italy which allowed him to smooth out his effort: Daniel Felipe Martinez, 2nd overall and the only man under 10 minutes (9’56 behind Pogi), is this really serious?
> The competition arrived at the Tour in pieces: “Vingegaard arrived with a pretty incredible injury that dated back to the Tour of the Basque Country,” Chainel points out. “And next to that, we have an Evenepoel who is still a complete novice on the Tour. It was the perfect opportunity to do this double.”
Sepp Kuss and the example of the damage of a three-round year
The hat trick, and that’s where the joke ends, no one really believes it. Asked by 20 minutesLilian Calmejane, Intermarché-Wanty rider even sees it as a danger for the rider. “I dare to hope that his staff at UAE is intelligent enough to slow him down if he wants to do the Vuelta. Because we must not forget that Pogacar is 26 years old and that he can still win 5 or 6 Tours de France. So, we must not go and burn him out for the next three seasons. Doing three grand tours leaves its mark. You only have to look at Sepp Kuss.”
In the age-old feat genre, the American did his part last year. A top teammate to Primoz Roglic in the Giro and Jonas Vingegaard in the Tour, he won the Vuelta at the end of the season, making him the first rider in 66 years to contest all three major races of the year and win one of them. But there is a price to pay for that.
“Kuss is not Pogacar’s engine, but he is still a huge talent,” Calmejane points out. “And poor guy, this year, he has been chasing his form since the start of the season, and he has had lots of problems. Three rounds are hard on the mind and legs to remobilize in the winter, train hard in the cold and still be motivated. It’s like if tomorrow you opened a restaurant and you worked from 6am until midnight for a year. The following year, you might work a little less.”
Pogacar loves the classics too much to lead a life of grand tours
The Adam Hansen exception exists (the Australian has raced 20 Grand Tours in a row), but there is a world of difference between racing in the comfort of the back and spending weeks rubbing and eating up stress. Steve Chainel: “the mental discharge that it requires of you, especially when playing for the general classification… Repeating three weeks of concentration three times in the same year, three weeks of nervousness, risks of falling, risks of echelons… It seems very hard to me. When you win, it is always easier to achieve, but I think it would be a serious mistake for Pogacar to go to the Vuelta this year. Olympics or no Olympics, by the way.”
The triple train is therefore likely to pass through the station without stopping. And it is not certain that it will ever come back. Because a year with three grand tours requires preparation accordingly. Tadej Pogacar arrived at the Giro with ten days of racing, including two classics (Milan-San Remo and Liège-Bastogne-Liège). A pace that does not fit with the character or his ambitions. “I prefer not to chase records, but new challenges, and I am especially attracted by the races that I have not yet done,” he said after the Giro. “It is certain that one day, he will want to win San Remo, where he revolves around victory, and concentrate on Paris-Roubaix to win it, bets Steve Chainel. That is why this year was the right one to do the double.” The triple crown, however, will remain an inaccessible dream, even for Pogi. And that is not a bad thing.