Don’t Poke the Bear

Tadej Pogačar has hit the Tour de France with a such a powerful knockout punch that even Mike Tyson would be impressed. The defending Tour champ lashed out at a peloton that had combined against him on Friday’s long stage, isolating and wounding his team, forcing them into the deepest levels of effort. Pogačar’s UAE team pulled themselves back together for yesterday’s first day in the Alps, finding enough strength to place him into good position before the final two mountains of the stage. The Slovenian took full advantage of their work in a performance that has left the cycling world agog.

 The stage, as is now normal, was raced with full aggression right from the start with Bahrain-Victorious, in full confidence after Matej Morhorič’s win, sent Wout Poels on a long solo attack, one that was so strong that the field constantly splintered, regrouped then re-splintered in its chase of the Dutchman. The ferocity laid waste to the dreams of Geraint Thomas and Primoz Roglič, both Tour contenders too damaged by their crashes and unable to recover given the unrelenting intensity of the racing. They would finish 35-minutes down, just in front of the Broom Wagon.

 Wout van Aert, sitting second overall, did what he could to escape before the final climbs, successfully dropping the Yellow Jersey Mathieu van der Poel, racing bravely the entire day in hopes of holding on to what he could of his 3’13” advantage over Pogačar. But, carrying 27-pounds more than the Slovenian, van Aert faded on the final climbs losing 4’56” to the new Yellow Jersey yet amazingly maintaining his second place overall, 1’48” down. It should be noted that van Aert had his appendix removed at the end of April and is still returning to form. 

Pogačar’s UAE-Emirates team was back, Rui Costa put in a sterling performance, but it was American Brandon McNulty and Italian David Formolo who provided the crucial work on the penultimate Col de Romme, setting a fierce pace that eliminated many of the favorites and set their leader up for his assault on the race. The Slovenian attacked with four-kilometers to the top of the Col de Romme, Ineo’s Richard Carapaz, the last man standing of that team’s fading Yellow Jersey hopes went with Pogačar but was almost immediately dropped by the charging champion who was ripping 16-17 seconds a kilometer of out the “Ecuadorian Eagle”, climbing 2-kph faster uphill. 

 Much has been made of the fact that Pogačar climbed the two mountains in his big chainring, but with the modern setups – the Campagnolo rear cassette is a 12-29 – he was using 53 x 26 and 23, with an occasional dose of the 21, which are 54, 60 and 66-inch gears. Impressive of course, but “big chainring” means different things today. 

 Ahead of Pogačar was a group in search of the stage win had escaped the peloton of favorites, Canadian Michael Woods of the Israel Start-up Nation Team was alone in front bidding for victory while behind, in the final execution of what was clearly their plan for the day, Bahrain-Victorious sent their Belgian rouleur Dylan Teuns out of the group to finish off Wout Poel’s fine work, catching and dropping Woods for the team’s second stage win in a row. Behind, Pogačar roared past 13 of the escapees to finish 4th on the day, one place ahead of the brave Wout Poels, taking the Yellow Jersey. He’s now 1”48” ahead of van Aert with third placed Alexey Lutsenko a whopping 4’38” down. The rest of the obliterated peloton, the most strung out field in over 20-years, limped in over the next 35-minutes.

 The Tour is not over, there are still weaknesses in Pogačar’s team to exploit and fine racing ahead. What will remain exciting is witnessing the birth and development of one of the great cycling champions of history. There’ve been many comparisons already made, “he’s the new Eddy Merckx”, etc., but I’m seeing a young Greg LeMond in the Slovenian. He has that magic that Greg had, the pure talent, that ability to instinctively read a race and dominate it to his will. The scary thing for the rest of the peloton is that Tadej Pogačar is still at the top of the Young Rider Classification: his reign will be long.