When Thaddeus Pogacar crashed on the Col du Granon on stage 11 of this Tour de France, it was tempting to draw comparisons with 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 signaled the beginning of the end. Pogacar, on the contrary, is still only 23 years old and is clearly not going anywhere. This tour certainly marks a bump in the road, not the start of a premature decline.
In this regard, Pogacar’s abdication to Granon’s Jonas Wingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) perhaps carries harsher resonances than Merckx’s defeat at the hands of Louis Ocana at Orsier-Merlet in 1971. Pogacar, like Mercx, responded by attacking the new maillot jaune at every opportunity. Merckx had providence on his side when Ocaña crashed on the Col de Mente descent. Pogachar, on the other hand, was not at all lucky and he faced an implacable enemy in the person of Wingegard and his streak of success at the Tour was broken.
“I think Thaddeus is still Thaddeus, he’s still the strongest rider in the world,” manager Mauro Giannetti told Cyclingnews. “Vingegaard is obviously strong, races very well and has a top-level team around him, with the incredible Van Aert in particular.
“Thaddeus, by virtue of his character and youth, made a mistake on the stage of Granon, and a series of obligations afterwards arose from it.” He had to change the way he raced and take some risks, which made it more difficult. But at the end of the day, you have to give credit to what Vingegaard did because he raced really well.”
In the 12 months since Pogacar won his second consecutive Tour last July, the Slovenian has seemed to be competing with history as much as his contemporaries. The more he won Monuments, dominated stage races and attacked like hell, the more his reference points shifted from Roglič and Bernal to Merckx and Hinault. That tour and Vingegaard’s astonishing performance brought Pogačar back to the here and now.
In Rocamadour on Saturday night, Pogachar admitted there were lessons to be learned from that tour, although he was light on specifics.
“A lot of things were learned on this tour in those three weeks. I had a bad day because of a lot of little things,” he said. “There is always a chance to improve. I think we have room for next year in everything.”
Pogacar’s biggest problem in this Tour, of course, was Vingegaard, who had already noticed his strength with his performances at Mont Ventoux and the Pyrenees last year. There were also complications of his own making, notably his complete disregard for energy conservation. He attacked on the cobbles in the first week, took back-to-back stage wins and then followed up every Jumbo-Visma attack on the Galibier in that fateful stage 11. Something had to give.
While Giannetti accepted that Pogacar had made mistakes, he was unwilling to force his protégé to start racing against his nature by riding more conservatively.
“Maybe it’s the first time he’s been in a situation like this, and he’s going to get a lot of important information out of it,” Giannetti said. “We will look to improve, of course, but we don’t want to completely change the character and personality of a champion like Thaddeus.
“He reacts very calmly because he knows he gave his best. It’s easier to assume someone drove harder than him, but Vingegaard isn’t far off either.
“And we can’t forget that Thaddeus only had three teammates in the end because of COVID-19. Once that got into the team it created an incredible internal tension and that didn’t help, but the boys really responded really well and stayed focused.”
The Vuelta
As riders like Merckx, Indurain and Hinault have discovered in the past, Tour dominance rarely translates into popularity, but losing the race can instantly dampen a man’s image. Pogacar lost that round and lost a bit of his aura of invincibility, but he’s hardly leaving disheartened by the experience.
“Maybe the fact that I’m in this position has helped the world to know who Thaddeus really is,” said Giannetti, who admitted that Pogacar’s battle was finally lost after he crashed on the Spadel descent on Thursday. “There wasn’t that much physical difference between Thaddeus and Wingegard, but I think his fall affected him morale-wise.”
In his press conference after Saturday’s penultimate stage, Pogacar vowed to return to the Tour in 2022, warning that Wingegaard’s performance only served to give him “motivation to be better next year”. Not that Pogacar will necessarily wait until next year to redeem himself.
After all, the Vuelta a España starts in Utrecht in just under four weeks. The race was provisionally included in his program at the start of the season and a decision on his eventual participation will be made next week.
“The Vuelta is the Vuelta and it’s not an easy race. Next week, when things calm down, we’ll talk about the Vuelta. First we’ll finish the Tour and then we’ll sit down and talk calmly about the second half of the season,” Giannetti said, dismissing the idea that Pogacar could use the Vuelta to hunt stages or prepare for the World Championship.
“No, if he goes to compete, he will go there to try and win it – as he always does, from January to December. It’s part of his way of being, he couldn’t approach it any other way. And that’s also part of our job, to manage Thaddeus in a sensible, long-term way.”
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