2023-07-01 11:52:05
Anti-Covid masks are back in the runners’ haversacks. In Bilbao where the big start of this 110th edition of the Tour de France is being prepared, all the actors and followers of the event lend themselves without hesitation to the protocol.
Lightened, it remains despite everything, just to avoid the blow of fate that occurred on the recent Tour of Italy, where the favorite Remco Evenepoel, caught up with the nasty virus, had decided to pack up on the evening of the 9th stage.
Nobody on the Grande Boucle dares to evoke such a prospect, that of a private race of one of its major animators, as everyone is waiting for the “Explanation”, the “Revenge”, the “Duel”. With capital letters everywhere, because we are not talking about giants with tiny words dropped from the tip of the pen. Because Jonas Vingegaard, winner in 2022, and Tadej Pogacar, double winner in 2020 and 2021, are up there, up there, at the top of cycling, together and alone. All the others are asked to fight for what is conceded to them, a piece of the podium, the third step and that’s it.
Two ogres who devour everything
Because if the Dane and the Slovenian were dominating last year, we have to admit that they are now overwhelming. Take Jonas Vingegaard, and his recent ride on the Critérium du Dauphiné, three weeks before the Tour: an undisputed triumph, with two stages overwhelmed during the week, and in the end 2 minutes and 23 seconds ahead of the first pursuer, the Englishman Adam Yates, nothing less than the biggest gap between first and second in this event since… 1987 (success of Charly Mottet).
The Tour de France 2023 map. / Visactu
And the whole packaged like nothing, without open mouth or painful grin in the collars, no, soft pedal and forward. This had not prevented the boy from declaring on arrival: “I still have work to do because I still have room for improvement ahead of me…”. No kidding ?
What to say, also, of the appetite of the Slovenian competitor. At the start of the season, Tadej Pogacar devoured everything. Twelve victories in 18 days in the saddle. Two stage races (including Paris-Nice in March 2023 ahead of Jonas Vingegaard third), and three classics chained like a rocket, including a Tour of Flanders, disgusting all his opponents one by one. Enough to justify his nickname of “cannibal” even more, Tadej Pogacar becoming like Eddy Merckx one of the rare runners (with also Louison Bobet) to include the Tour de France and the famous Flanders monument on his list.
Pogacar and Vingegaard do seem unattainable
What would he have left as crumbs, the Slovenian, if a nasty fall on Liège-Bastogne-Liège on April 23 had not forced him to stop to treat a severe wrist fracture? His return to competition seven days before the Tour for the national championships in his country offers two elements of response: first in the time trial, swept up more than five minutes ahead of his runner-up, then in the online race taken alone is always better.
So of course, as the manager of his UAE Emirates team, Mauro Gianetti, expresses it, with his preparation thwarted by his injury and his lack of benchmarks in action over the last two months, “we are sure of nothing”. The fact remains, as Marc Madiot, the manager of the ambitious French team Groupama-FDJ, points out that Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard do indeed seem “unreachable”. “Faced with these monsters, we do what we can to follow as closely as possiblehe philosophizes. And we take all the opportunities that pass. » If they pass…
The Obsessive Shy
The two ogres with opposite personalities are hardly sharing. Each in their own way adds to the intensity of the show. A year after his coronation, Jonas Vingegaard still remains Mr. Mystery, hidden behind a more or less feigned shyness and a blunt tongue-in-cheek.
He entered another dimension last year, returning to Denmark in a plane escorted by two F-16s, descending the boulevard in Copenhagen in a convertible and princely cheers. But, promise-sworn, “I have not changed and I will never change”, he assured at the end of the 2022 season. He partially locked himself in his house in Glyngore, in the north of the country, leaving his wife Trine to filter the solicitations, rejecting most of them. Star, him? Never.
The character is not to displease his team, the Jumbo-Visma. Who surrounds his prodigy all the better as he sticks rather well to the maniacal credo of the Batavian collective. To foresee everything and plan everything, or almost, the Dane adheres, who hammers a “I always want to do better” obsessive.
And he succeeds for now, coldly executing his opponents, without looking back. He never exults, rushing across the line only to take in his arms his little Frida, soon to be 3 years old, who even more than the rest illuminates her father’s reel. Otherwise what ? The Dane responds politely, congratulates his teammates, delivers nothing but his staggering performances.
Flamboyant excesses
Quite the opposite of its rival, in short. Tadej Pogacar, he pedals with panache in the wind, even showing off, from time to time. Running to the economy is not her style of beauty. And he does it that way because he has fun, laughs more often than not. The ease, what do you want, the natural class of the champion who benefits from an innate gift.
Even absent, he manages to be everywhere. Wrist in plaster okay, but fire on social networks during his recovery in the spring. Tadej on his exercise bike in Monaco, Tadej in a sheathing session on his terrace, Tadej in jogging and backpack on the stairs of the Rock. And even Tadej has a cigarette in his mouth, well, just for the schoolboy joke. Star, him? And how !
One does not domesticate such a temperament. On the 2022 Tour, wanting to do too much, he was also a tad exhausted on his own against the solidarity group of Jumbo-Visma. He promises this year to be less clever but to be more. “I am convinced that there are tactical answers to be found to prevent them from being so dominant”he said before Paris-Nice daily The Team.
It prevents. After two months without much to put under the toe clips, he obviously has ants in his legs. And can’t help but show off a bit, facing a particularly spicy program from the Basque Country. “We will be able to gauge the forces present very quickly. We need to go full speed ahead. I can not wait to be there “, he paws. Anti-covid masks may well reappear on the faces of runners. There are two that stick out by a head, and that we recognize from afar. With or without.
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A less carbon-intensive Tour
The 110th edition of the Tour de France sets off from Bilbao, in the Spanish Basque Country. This is the 25th start of the Grande Boucle abroad.
The 176 starters, divided into 22 teams, will have to cover 3,405.6 km in 21 stages, including 8 in the mountains (highest point in the 17th stage, the Col de la Loze at 2,304 m), with 4 finishes at altitude, 8 in the plain, 4 with a very hilly profile, only one stage being reserved for a rather short individual time trial (22.4 km).
The organizers of the Tour are working to limit the carbon footprint of the event, already reduced by 40% between 2013 and 2021 if we are to believe the measurements carried out on these dates. For the second year, all the organization’s cars will be 100% electric or hybrid. For the first time, the trucks carrying all the equipment will run on biofuel. In 2024, all accredited vehicles must have alternative engines. All caravan gifts are now made of recycled or recyclable material.
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