Tour de France Question Time
One week in, and there are three big questions which need answering
So often, our enjoyment of sport is defined by recency bias.
We think a match is the best we’ve ever seen because we’ve just had the thrill of, well, seeing it. Experiencing it. With that said, you would be hard pressed to pick a punchier, more enoyable opening week to the Tour de France in some time. It seems an age since Lou Lou (Julian Alaphilipe) strutted his way into the yellow jersey with a glorious attack on the first day in Lanernau, and even greater racing was to follow.
Mathieu van der Poel, perhaps the cyclist of his star-studded generation, stomped to an emphatic victory on the steep double climb of the Mûr-de-Bretagne, in turn taking the yellow jersey. A jersey which eluded his Grandfather (cycling great Raymond Poulidor), but stayed stitched to the Dutchman’s back until the end of Stage 8. The man he lost it to, Tadej Pogačar, has since placed the race in a vice-like grip.
All this without mentioning perhaps the story of the Tour so far; the emphatic Grand Tour return of Mark Cavendish. Two stage wins, and the Green Jersey now on his back, the Manxman has now secured 32 stage wins at the biggest race of them all, and 50 Grand Tour stage wins in total. For his longevity, determination, demon-wrangling and utterly romantic return to where he belongs, winning races, I cannot see how Cavendish can be regarded as anything less than the greatest British cyclist of them all.
However, after an electric week of racing which also included superb stage wins for Matej Mohorič, Dylan Teuns and Ben O’Connor, there are still questions to be answered before we run into Paris.
Let’s get into three of the biggest ones.
Can Cav beat Eddy Merckx’s record and win the Green Jersey?
Yes.
If you had answered this way a year ago, very few would’ve believed it. But now, with Cavendish in fantastic form, and with a number of winnable stages still to come, the odds are becoming infinitely more favourable. Eddy Merckx won an impossible 34 stages across his devastating career, but now Cavendish is close behind on 32. The first of these came in 2008, at the very same town in which he claimed his latest, Châteauroux.
But taking the heart - which of course screams yes - out of the equation, and even the head thinks this could actually come to pass. Cavendish has proven to be one of the fastest men at this year’s Tour. More so, the two biggest threats to his primacy, Caleb Ewan and Tim Merlier, have both abadonded the race through injury, while Arnaud Démare will also not make it to Paris after missing the time cut in Tignes. There is still a huge amount of sprinting talent in the peloton - Jasper Philipsen consistently runs the Manxman close, for example, and Wout van Aert may look to secure some stage wins in the second and third weeks - but the field is getting thinner.
Given Cavendish’s fierce competitiveness, you would suspect that he would be disappointed not to pick up at least two more wins. The parcours for Stages 10, 12, 13 and 19 are all sprinter-friendly, with the final stage in Paris so often the Holy Grail for the peloton’s speed merchants. Indeed, Cavendish has already ridden to victory on the Parisien cobbles on multiple occasions.
In a strange sense, the battle for the Green, points, jersey may be a closer run thing. Though the quickest on a flat finish, Cavendish has never been the best climber, meaning the Intermediate Sprints (set in the middle of stages, and often just beyond the crest of a hill) have been hoovered up by Michael Matthews and the ominous-looking Sonny Colbrelli. So, to win the Green Jersey, Cavendish simply needs to win stages.
All of this means that, should he traverse the Pyrenees within the time limit, there is the completely tantalising prospect of Cavendish taking Mercx’s record in Paris, on the Champs-Élysées, and in the Green Jersey. If he did so, it would have to be marked as one of the greatest comebacks in cycling history.
Can anyone beat Tadej Pogačar?
No.
At least, not in a straight fight up the mountains. The Slovenian has been imperious to the point of disbelief, scaling past world-class climbers like Richard Carapaz with jaw-dropping insouciance. He may be baby-faced, but Pog rides like a Grand Tour veteran, completely in control of his effort levels and acutely aware of when to press home his advantage.
As Stage 8 came to a close, Pogačar took minutes out of his rivals. Indeed, if you discount Ben O’Connor for a moment - whose sensational ride in Stage 9 took him to within two minutes of the Slovenian - the next closest rider trails him by more than five minutes. In a race so often defined by mere seconds, to have amassed such a huge gap so early on is ominous for the rest of the peloton.
So, what, or who, can concievably prevent Pog from taking back-to-back titles? The chief amongst these is Pogačar himself. His rides so far have looked effortless, but he wouldn’t be the first GC contender to ‘blow up’ in the final week of a race. More so, while his natural inclincation is to push for the win (as he showed while chasing the breakaway in Stage 8), this may need to be curbed to prevent unecessary energy expenditure and to mitigate the chance of a crash.
The only other way that Ineos, Jumbo Visma, Astana and more could look to topple the Slovenian is through a concerted attempt to unsettle his team, UAE Team Emirates. It has often been said that this is the smallest chink in Pog’s armour, as it lacks the firepower of the other ‘GC’ teams, so their only hope is to isolate the Slovenian and deprive him of his Domestiques. In all likelihood, though, this is now wholly Pog’s race to lose, and a second, emphatic Yellow Jersey seems a done deal.
If Pog did want to make a statement, there would be few better places to do it than Stage 11 and the double ascent of Mount Ventoux, a climb etched in the folklore of the Tour’s history…
Is it game over for Primosz Roglič and Geraint Thomas?
Yes and No.
Following a series of heavy crashes, it has been a miserable race for both the Slovenian and the Brit. Having arrived in France ear-marked as potential winners, both have plummeted down the rankings, with Roglič eventually deciding to retire from the race due to his injuries. Ever the fierce competitior - he completed near enough the entire 2013 TDF with a fractured pelvis, remember - Thomas is soldiering on, and looked much better in Tignes, but he’s no longer gunning for Yellow.
Roglič is one of the most successful racers of his generation; a double winner of the Vuelta a Espana who also snuck a victory at last year’s Liege-Bastogne-Liege. In most people’s eyes, this would be success, but Roglič risks being remembered for the race he hasn’t won; the Tour de France. The pain of last year’s penultimate day loss to Tadej Pogačar is bound to have left deep mental scarring, and luck hasn’t been on Roglič’s side so far this season. A heavy crash deprived him of a win at Paris-Nice, a race he was dominating, and he was unable to achieve any sort of rythm at this year’s TDF.
The Slovenian has phenomenal mental fortitude, and a huge amount of talent. Whether he will return for a tilt at the Tour in 2022 remains to be seen, as he now turns his attention fully to the Olympic Road Race in a few weeks’ time. Rog will arrive in Tokyo potentially fresher than those who completed the whole Tour, which could give him the break he needs to achieve a result which would reflect his brilliance on the bike.
While Rog is 31, Thomas is a shade older at 35. Less of a name for the future, but undoubtedly with Grand Tour itches yet to scratch. Last year’s attempt at the Giro d’Italia was scuppered by a rogue water bottle, and a move towards Italy may suit an Ineos team who may be tempted to re-shuffle their Tour de France line-up for next year’s event after an underwhelming 2021. So while the game is well and truly up for both riders in this year’s Tour, the future is not quite as gloomy as the Alpine clouds and rain which dogged stages eight and nine.
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Just over a week in and this year’s edition of the Tour De France has had it all. From crashes and high-speed finishes through to alpine battles and the (mostly) welcome return of fans to the verges of French roads.
We often wait for the second week of the Tour for things to heat up, but not so in 2021. With the Pyrenees still to come, there is of course the chance that the race will be upended once again.
As ever with the Tour de France, you never really know.