Cycling-Pogacar the man to beat as he chases third Tour title in a row

By Julien Pretot

Paris, June 29 (Reuters) – Tadej Pogacar will be the gentleman to conquer as he targets his 3rd consecutive Tour de France title when the race sets off on Friday, with the 23-12 months-old Slovenian looking to develop into one particular of the sport’s all-time wonderful riders.

Dubbed the “Child Cannibal” for his similarities to previous 5-time winner Eddy “The Cannibal” Merckx, Pogacar has previously gained the UAE Tour, the Tirreno-Adriatico and Tour of Slovenia stage races this year as very well as the Strade Bianche a person-day vintage.

Only the Jumbo-Visma staff armada seem in a position to dent Pogacar’s armour. The Dutch outfit has two leaders – Slovenia’s Primoz Roglic and very last year’s runner-up Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark – in a staff that also offers the formidable Wout van Aert.

They will be seeking to regulate the race and isolate Pogacar, who has by now shown that he fears no-just one on any terrain. He will require to show that fearlessness all over again in the 1st number of times when the winds in Denmark and the cobbles of northern France might establish treacherous.

He could even attain time on his principal rivals on these phases ahead of the race reaches the mountains, exactly where he proved nearly unbeatable past calendar year.

“It will be definitely be an enjoyable struggle in between him and the Jumbo Visma group,” Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme explained to Reuters.

The Tour returns to La Planche des Belles Filles, where Pogacar snatched the in general direct from Roglic in dramatic vogue in a time trial on the penultimate day of the 2020 race, when the punishing Col du Granon and L’Alpe d’Huez and its famous 21 hairpins also await.

The two time trials, the inaugural 13.2-km hard work in Copenhagen and the closing 40.7-km examination in Rocamadour right before the final day’s procession to Paris, are not predicted to unsettle Pogacar possibly.

Ineos-Grenadiers, who won 7 out of 8 Tour titles from 2012 right before Pogacar seized ability, will have possibilities with Adam Yates, Dani Martinez and Geraint Thomas in the staff, but none of them individually are a match for the formidable Slovenian all-rounder.

France, meanwhile, is nonetheless waiting for its first Tour de France winner considering the fact that Bernard Hinault in 1985, and there is minor sign that he will have a successor this calendar year.

Thibaut Pinot, who arrived agonisingly near in 2019 prior to retiring wounded in the final week, is again to a good stage of effectiveness but he is not envisioned to be a serious contender.

The Groupama-FDJ rider will go for phase wins and probably the polka-dot jersey for the mountains classification in a likely duel with fellow Frenchman Romain Bardet, a shock participant just after he withdrew unwell from the Giro d’Italia.

Environment champion Julian Alaphilippe was not picked by his Brief Stage Alpha Vinyl group as he has only just returned to racing next a freak crash in April.

Also absent from the Belgian team’s roster is Mark Cavendish, that means the British rider will overlook out on a probability to conquer Merckx’s report of 34 Tour phase wins, having matched that file at previous year’s race.

The race will get started underneath an additional cloud of doping suspicions right after police searched the properties of riders and team of Staff Bahrain Victorious on Monday.

French prosecutors opened a preliminary investigation into doping allegations versus Bahrain Victorious soon after police searched the team’s lodge late in final year’s race, when they received 3 stages.

At the time, the prosecutor’s place of work in Marseille stated the investigation was into “acquisition, transportation, possession, import of a prohibited compound or prohibited process for use by an athlete without the need of professional medical justification”.

(Reporting by Julien Pretot Enhancing by Hugh Lawson)

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