When Tadej Pogačar crashed the Col du Granon on stage 11 of this Tour de France, it was tempting to compare himself to 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 a record sixth Tour victory, these defeats marked the beginning of the end. Pogačar, on the other hand, is still only 23 and clearly going nowhere. This Tour certainly marks a bump in the road rather than the start of a premature decline.
In this sense, Pogačar’s abdication to Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) in the Granon perhaps echoed more strongly than Merckx’s defeat at the hands of Luis Ocaña in Orcières-Merlette in 1971. Pogačar, like Merckx, responded by attacking the new yellow jersey at every opportunity. . Merckx had providence on his side, as Ocaña crashed on the descent of the Col de Menté. Pogačar, on the other hand, was unlucky, and faced a relentless foe in Vingegaard, and his streak of success at the Tour was snapped.
“I think Tadej is still Tadej, he’s still the strongest rider in the world,” coach Mauro Gianetti told Cyclingnews. “Vingegaard is clearly strong, has run very well and has had a top-class team around him, with an extraordinary Van Aert in particular.
“Tadej, due to his character and his youth, made a mistake on the Granon stage, and then a series of obligations arose. He had to change the way he competed and take some risks, and that made it more difficult. But ultimately you have to pay tribute to what Vingegaard did, because he ran really well.”
In the 12 months since Pogačar claimed his second successive Tour last July, the Slovenian appeared to be fighting history as much as his contemporaries. The more he won the Monuments, dominated the stage races and attacked from hell, the more his reference points shifted from Roglič and Bernal to Merckx and Hinault. This Tour and Vingegaard’s amazing display have brought Pogačar back to the here and now.
In Rocamadour on Saturday evening, Pogačar acknowledged there were lessons to be learned from this Tour, although he was light on details.
“In these three weeks many things have been learned in this Tour. I had a bad day because of a lot of little things,” he said. “There’s always room for improvement. I think we have room for next year in everything.”
Pogačar’s biggest problem in this Tour, of course, was Vingegaard, who had already made his strength known with his displays on Mont Ventoux and the Pyrenees last year. There were also complications of his own making, most notably his complete indifference to saving energy. He attacked on the cobbles in the first week, took successive stage wins and then followed all the Jumbo-Visma attacks on the Galibier in that fateful stage 11. Something had to give.
Although Gianetti accepted that Pogačar had made mistakes, he was reluctant to force his protégé to start racing against his nature by driving more conservatively.
“Maybe it’s the first time he’s been in a situation like this and he’s going to take a lot of important information from it,” Gianetti said. “We will seek to improve, of course, but we do not want to completely change the character and personality of a champion like Tadej.
“He reacts very calmly because he knows he gave his best. It’s easier to accept that someone rode harder than him, but Vingegaard isn’t far off either.
“And we can’t forget that Tadej only had three teammates at the end because of the COVID-19. Once he entered the team, it created an incredible internal tension and that didn’t help, but the boys reacted really well well and they stayed focused.”
return
As riders like Merckx, Indurain and Hinault discovered yesterday, dominance in the Tour rarely translates into popularity, but losing the race can instantly soften a man’s image. Pogačar has lost this Tour and has lost some of his aura of invincibility, but he is hardly unscathed by the experience.
“Perhaps being in this position has helped the world to see who Tadej really is,” said Gianetti, who admitted Pogačar’s battle was lost for good once he crashed in the relegation of the Spandelles on Thursday. “There wasn’t that big of a physical difference between Tadej and Vingegaard, but I think that fall affected him in terms of morale.”
In his press conference after Saturday’s penultimate stage, Pogačar vowed to return to the Tour in 2022, warning that Vingegaard’s display only served to give him “motivation to be better next year”. Not that Pogačar will necessarily wait until next year to redeem himself.
The Vuelta a España starts in Utrecht in just under four weeks, after all. The race was tentatively included in his schedule at the start of the season and a decision on his eventual participation will be made in the next week or so.
“The Vuelta is the Vuelta, and it’s not an easy race. Next week, when things have calmed down, we will talk about the Vuelta. We’ll finish the Tour first, and then we’ll sit down and talk quietly about the second half of the season,” Gianetti said, dismissing the idea that Pogačar could use the Vuelta to hunt stages or prepare for the World Championship.
“No, if he is going to compete, I would go there to try to beat him, as he always does, from January to December. It’s part of his way of being, he couldn’t focus on it any other way. And this is also part of our job, to manage Tadej in a prudent and long-term way.”