Paris: The Tour de France is set for a battle on Saturday with Tadej Pogacar of Florence, Italy, and defending champion Jonas Wingegaard poised to take the world’s biggest cycling race down to the wire.
The UAE team rider Pogacar enters the 21-day race in red after winning the Giro d’Italia in May.
Two-time defending champion Wisman Wingegaard of Denmark has not raced since suffering multiple fractures in March.
Wingegaard’s fall offers Slovenia’s Pogacar the chance to avenge the Dane’s brutality in destroying him on two Alpine stages at the end of 2023.
“I tested my legs a little and to be honest I didn’t feel good on the bike,” said Pogacar, who won in 2020 and 2021.
“Everybody thought that I would win this race every year, but the last two times I didn’t.”
Although he doesn’t like the heat and altitude of football, Vingegaard is on the back foot this year due to a damaged lung and ribs sustained in an accident in March.
“Jonas is badly injured, but I think he will be fine. If he feels mentally strong and recovers well, he will be at his peak,” said Pogacar.
Behind this chalk-and-cheese competitor is the person who thinks less tax on the treacherous track in a year that has grabbed the headlines for the cycling event.
Veteran Primoz Roglic has won the Vuelta Espana and the Giro in his career and will ride in Red Bull colors with a new contract worth six million euros in his pocket.
There is also the unheralded talent of Belgium’s Remko Evenepoel (Quickstep), who will test twice and make an impressive Touring debut for the 24-year-old. best young rider form.
We saw that Remko and Primoz are in good condition in the Dauphine and I think it will be the best. But you never know. Last year I thought I was 100 percent,” he said.
The route crosses the Alps twice with the motto of the Seven Mountains, debuts in a white knuckle race and ends with a time trial from Monaco to Nice on the French Riviera.
Broadcast live in more than 100 countries, the first four days are filled with the colors of Italy, starting with the race across the Rubicon River, the seaside sights of Rimini, the Romagna road to Bologna and the Renaissance beauty of Florence. Finally, the capital of Fiat moved to France for the remaining 17 stages from Turin.
- The Great Climax –
Instead of the usual parade route in Paris on the final day of the 21st round, the organizers have looked for another place to clash in the French capital and the 2024 Olympics.
what solution they come up with. Instead of going down the Champs-Elysees, the stage is now 34.5km time trial on the Corniches coast between Monaco and Nice.
The final stage could provide a final twist of fate for riders reminiscent of the 1989 Tour, when American Greg LeMond won by eight seconds in a rare test day, 50 seconds behind French leader Laurent Fignon. .
Pogacar aims to make history again by becoming the first rider in 26 seasons to win both the Giro and the Tour de France in the same season.
He failed to qualify for the Giro in May and will join a list of legends including Fausto Coppi, Quesque Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Steven Roach, Miguel Indurain and Marco Pantani. Double achievement in 1998.
Seven climbs, including a four-pitch finale, were favored by Wingegaard, the highest of which was 2,802 meters on stage 19.
