Smash and grab

 

PREDICTABLY,  the MAN  of the moment, world champion Tadej Pocacar, emerged from his high-altitude training camp too  smash the opposition  for an outright win in the five-day Tour of Switzerland.

He’s a like a hit man, targeting and riding only specific races he wants to win, bagging the spoils at single day Classics – dropping in at the Tour of Romandie to mop  up there then off for high-altitude training before hitting the Swiss Tour. 

The smash and grab in Switzerland began early - on the very first stage -  with another astonishing attack when still 80 kilometres to go. He won by two minutes from Grand Tour winner Richard Carapaz and over four minutes on the rest.

Once again I felt dismay at the impotence of the rest of the field who seldom match this whirlwind. He’s been the subject of every single blog of mine so far this year.

Big hitters like Mattieu Van Der Poel (VDP) and another Grand Tour winner Primus Roglic were among those he left behind in Switzerland, the latter after indicating he would take him on.

He then won the stage three individual time trial, by one second from VDP.  Finally, he topped his wrecking spree up snatching final stage from the under the nose of only man to take him on that mountainous day, France’s Lenny Martinez who was caught within a few hundred metres of the summit finishing line.

Now Pog’s stated aim is to smash the field in the Tour de France and so join the small elite club of five time winners.

Can anyone challenge him? I live in hope.

He won the Swiss Tour by six minutes after five days of racing. If we dare to extrapolate from that to calculate his winning margin in Le Tour which is four times longer, are we looking at 24 minutes?

Why not?

*The greatest time gap since the 1950s is 28 min 27 sec, between Fausto Coppi (Italy) and Stan Ockers (Belgium) in 1952. (Guinness Book of Records),

Surely, rival team managers are plotting together to hatch a plan to combat Pogacar’s incredible show of strength. It’s not just rocket man himself that needs to be contained, but the entire UAE team which sets up the crippling pace that precedes launch.

What’s their secret?

 

Vingegaard joins the exclusive club of triple Grand Tour champions

 

Jonas Vingegaard’s overall victory in his maiden Giro d’Italia which finished in Rome on Sunday opens the door to the world of statistics.

He won five stages and become only the ninth rider to win all three Grand Tours (eight men and one woman) during their careers: the Tour de France, Vuelta des Espana and the Giro.

He joins the other  cycling legends who have won all three: Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Felice Gimondi, Bernard Hinault, Alberto Contador, Vincenzo Nibali, Chris Froome and Annemeik Van Vleuten.

 

In doing so he moves one step ahead of his great rival, four times Tour  de France winner Tadej Pogacar who has yet to do so and against whom, he will do battle in Le Tour in July. Vingegaard finished second to Pogacar last year.

 

In addition to the Giro last month, Vingegaard has now won the Tour de France twice (2022 and 2023), the Vuelta once in 2025.

 

Let us indulge ourselves taking in a few more glorious race statistics which single out great riders.  

 

Merckx remains the all-time champion, with 11 Grand Tour victories: Tour de France and Giro five times each, and Vuelta once.

A few years ago a renowned Belgian journalist said that the man to surpass Merckx’ was not yet been born. 

 

No one has won all three Grand Tours in the same year.

 

But if we are talking “threes”, the most esteemed road record of them all is probably “The Triple Crown”.   That is victory in the Giro, Le Tour and the World professional road race championship in the same year.

Only four riders have done so in a single season: Merckx, Stephen Roche, Pogacar and Annemeik Van Vleuten.

 

But you can go dizzy with statistics, so we’ll settle for a few from the Giro just finished.

 

Respect is due the Portuguese star of the Giro, Afonso Eulalio, who took the race leader’s pink jersey on the rain-lashed stage five joining the breakaway and gaining six minutes on the favourites.

He held on with style, holding on to the pink jersey, and defying the odds in the stage 10 time trial, conceding time to the Dane, seeing his lead diminish to 27-seconds at the finish.

The time trial was won by Filippo Ganna.

Eulalio finally gave best in the mountains on stage 14, when Vingegaard took the jersey at last.

 

We could see that Vingegaard was head and shoulders above the rest when he won the penultimate stage alone,  extending his overall winning margin to five minutes 33 seconds on Felix Gall of Austria. Aussie Jai Hindley was third overall a further 63 seconds behind.

 

Of his upcoming scrap with Pogacar in July’s Tour de France, Vingegaard at the Rome finish said it would depend on how he came out of the Giro. If he was tired, he wouldn’t expect to mount a challenge to Pogacar. Then added, tellingly: “I am not tired.”