When Tadej Pogačar cracked on the Col du Granon on stage 11 of this Tour de France, it was tempting to draw comparisons with fin du régime moments like Eddy Merckx at Pra-Loup in 1975 or Miguel Indurain at Les Arcs in 1996.
For Merckx and Indurain, both chasing record sixth Tour victories, those defeats signalled the beginning of the end. Pogačar, by contrast, is still only 23 years of age and clearly not going anywhere. This Tour surely marks a bump in the road rather than the beginning of a premature decline.
In that regard, Pogačar’s abdication to Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) on the Granon perhaps bore firmer echoes of Merckx’s defeat at Luis Ocaña’s hands at Orcières-Merlette in 1971. Pogačar, like Merckx, responded by attacking the new maillot jaune at every opportunity. Merckx had providence on his side, as Ocaña crashed out on the descent of the Col de Menté. Pogačar, by contrast, had no luck at all, and he was faced with an implacable foe in Vingegaard, and his sequence of Tour success was interrupted.
“I think Tadej is still Tadej, he’s still the strongest rider in the world,” manager Mauro Gianetti told Cyclingnews. “Vingegaard is clearly strong, he’s raced very well, and he’s had top-level team around him, with an extraordinary Van Aert in particular.
“Tadej, through his character and his young age, made a mistake on the Granon stage, and then a series of obligations arose from that. He had to change his way of racing and take some risks, and that made it more difficult. But ultimately, you have to pay tribute to what Vingegaard did, because he raced really well.”
In the 12 months since Pogačar claimed his second successive Tour last July, the Slovenian seemed to be racing against history as much as his contemporaries. The more he won Monuments, dominated stage races and attacked for the sheer hell of it, the more his points of reference shifted from Roglič and Bernal to Merckx and Hinault. This Tour, and the astonishing display of Vingegaard has brought Pogačar back into the here and now.
In Rocamadour on Saturday evening, Pogačar acknowledged that there were lessons to be drawn from this Tour, even if he was light on specifics.
“A lot of things have been learned on this Tour on these three weeks. I had one bad day because of a lot of small things,” he said. “There’s always a chance to improve. I think we have some room for next year in everything.”
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