Tadej Pogačar decimated the field at the 2024 Giro d’Italia, winning by a margin that hadn’t been seen for 60 years. So you’d think Team UAE – Emirates would be thinking he’s the odds-on favourite against a recuperating Jonas Vingegaard.
“Tadej was also tired after the Giro,” team sports manager Joxean Matxin said to Sporza. “He has had days where he has burned 8,000 calories. His wattage was also very high.”
After an easy week of riding following the Giro, Pogačaris set to embark on altitude training sessions leading up to and including the Tour de France next week.
Giro-Double chances
The prospect of achieving the Giro-Tour double appears more achievable than before. However, at UAE Team Emirates, they are exercising caution.
“We definitely have an exceptional team for the Tour. Tadej remains our sole leader. Nevertheless, there are other teams with formidable leaders,” he stated. “Of course Vingegaard crashed heavily in the Tour of the Basque Country. Last year, Tadej crashed three weeks later in April and was in Vingegaard’s slipstream until the Tour time trial. Vingegaard will also have been on altitude training almost constantly for this Tour and he is the leader of the team that won the three Grand Tours last year.”
The other rivals
That’s why Maxtin believes the Dane is the top favourite for the Tour. There’s others two who could throw a wrench into the machine for Pogi’s attempt for the Giro-Tour double.
“I’m definitely taking Roglic, Vlasov and Evenepoel into account,” he concluded.
One other thing that Maxtin weighed in on was the chatter about the Slovenian going for the Vuelta, if he does pull off the double. “Winning the three Grand Tours in the same year is nice for the history books, but that’s not the case this year,” he said. “The Vuelta has never been on Pogačar’s schedule.”
The Tour de France begins June 29 in Florence. You can watch it on FloBikes.com
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