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The Tour de France rivalry between the effervescent Tadej Pogacar and themore sanguine defending champion Jonas Vingegaard has already established itself as one of the greatest in the long history of this crazy, beautiful sport. When you are inside the moment, it is often hard to see how history will look back on events which you are witnessing in real time. Often, the present can look banal in comparison with the sepia-tinted past.

The heroes of the post-war years, Gino Bartali and Fausto Coppi, or the great characters of the 1980s, Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault and Laurent Fignon, shine so brightly in cycling’s collective memory that they cast their shadows over the peloton of the here and now, making the current crop of riders look two-dimensional by comparison. However, that is not the case when it comes to Pogacar and Vingegaard. The last three editions of the race have raised them both onto a pedestal of their own, lifting them clear of the ordinary constraints of the here and now.



They have scored their names into the history of the sport. Cycling needs stories. All sports do, of course.

But with road racing the need is more acute than elsewhere. There is a reductive simplicity to the event, which ultimately boils down to the simple, brutal capitulation of a rival in the face of pain. Despite their physiques, cyclists are more akin to boxers than to many other sportspeople.

They need to land a KO to get the race won. And so, for all the tactical nuance of the Tour de .

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