It is often said that the Tour de France is the one race that brings together the best of the best, all at the peak of their fitness and with no other objectives in mind, in the battle for yellow. But this year there are big questions to ask of all the primary contenders. Two-time defending champion Jonas Vingegaard, two-time winner Tadej Pogacar, Primoz Roglic and Remco Evenepoel dominate the discussion, but there is reason to doubt each of them - perhaps opening the door for challenges from elsewhere.
Pogacar is many people's favourite in large part because the UAE Team Emirates man is the only one of the quartet to have avoided any serious setbacks this season. The Slovenian crushed the opposition to win the Giro d'Italia by nearly 10 minutes, winning six stages, in a display of utter dominance. It followed wins in the Volta a Catalunya, Strade-Bianche and Liege-Bastogne-Liege.
The only race Pogacar has entered and not won this season is Milan-San Remo, where he took third. But no man has done the Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani did so in a very different age in 1998. Alberto Contador, Vincenzo Nibali and Chris Froome have all tried, and all failed, since.
Vingegaard got the better of Pogacar in each of the past two Tours, and would have been confident of doing so again even before Pogacar set his sights on Giro glory. But the Dane has not raced since suffering a broken collarbone, several broken ribs, a collapsed lung and a contusion to that lung in a horror crash at.
