All year, the 2022 Tour de France has been billed as a duel between Tadej Pogačar and Primož Roglič, and both men duly hit their lines at their respective dress rehearsals before the main event. Roglič won a Critérium du Dauphiné dominated by his Jumbo-Visma team, while Pogačar breezed to victory at the Tour of Slovenia.
A third successive Slovenian victory at the Tour seems increasingly likely, but there are still plenty of variables between Copenhagen and Paris, not least the 20km of cobblestones on stage 5 to Arenberg. And, as the cluster of COVID-19 cases at the Tour de Suisse demonstrated, variables have already shaken up the form guide ahead of this Tour.
There were question marks over the prospects of Aleksandr Vlasov and Adam Yates after they were forced to abandon in Switzerland due to COVID-19, and the risk of infection has prompted several riders to forgo plans to race their National Championships the weekend before last.
The racing in June in France, Slovenia and Switzerland, therefore, was the final real showcase ahead of the Tour.
While only four stages have played out so far in this year’s Tour de France, it’s possible to glean some early indication about the form of the key players for this year’s GC race. In an action-packed Grand Départ in Denmark, some GC riders have barely put their noses in the wind, while others have already suffered from significant time losses.
Which are shaping up to succeed and which already have their work cut out for them?
Previous rank position: First
2022 results
- Winner, Tour of Slovenia (2 stage wins)
- 12th, Flèche Wallonne
- Fourth, Tour of Flanders
- 10th, Dwars door Vlaanderen
- Fifth, Milan-San Remo
- Winner, Tirreno-Adriatico (2 stages)
- Winner, Strade Bianche
- Winner, UAE Tour (2 stages)
On the day before Champions League ties, teams must allow television rights holders access to at least fifteen minutes of their final training session. Pogačar’s participation in last week’s Tour of Slovenia seemed to serve the same purpose. After a lengthy stint cloistered at altitude in Livigno, his outing on home roads often felt more like the televised portion of his pre-Tour de France training than a bike race.
The field at the Tour of Slovenia was notably weaker than at the Dauphiné or Tour de Suisse, but Pogačar has already been in a race of his own so often over the past two seasons that it hardly made any…
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