Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard set for thrilling showdown at Tour de France

PARIS – The Tour de France looks set to be a battle between defending champion Jonas Vingegaard and two-time winner Tadej Pogacar, with the mind games having already begun ahead of the big race which starts on Saturday.

Pogacar was enjoying a sterling season, winning Paris-Nice and the Tour of Flanders, before

breaking his wrist in April,

leaving the 2020 and 2021 Tour winner fighting to make a full recovery before the Grand Depart in Bilbao.

The 24-year-old Slovene has said that one of his bones had not fully healed yet, which also makes his Danish rival the natural front runner for the 2023 title.

“It doesn’t matter who says who the favourite is because, at the end of the day, it comes down to who is in the best shape,” Vingegaard, 26, said as he dismissed those claims on Thursday. “I can also say he is the big favourite.”

His Jumbo-Visma teammate Wout van Aert added: “I think it’s mind games.”

Pogacar’s UAE Emirates team have been reinforced with the recruitment of Britain’s Adam Yates and Felix Grossschartner – two big names for the mountains.

If Pogacar, champion in 2020 and 2021, is back to his best, then this Tour is set for a potentially vintage battle with Vingegaard once more.

The Danish rider, who will again be able to rely on his formidable Jumbo-Visma team, won the Criterium du Dauphine earlier in June and on paper will start as the big favourite.

He and his team made Pogacar crack in 2022, a year after he took second place behind his main rival.

Pogacar, however, has earned the nickname “Baby Cannibal”, in reference to Belgian great Eddy Merckx, and he will be out for revenge on a course that favours mountain battles and attacking riders.

He is expected to throw everything at Vingegaard, just as he did last season when he attacked on all terrains, earning the support of the French crowds.

At the same time, there is also a hint that he may be more cautious this time, saying that his “flawed” aggressive strategy in 2022 – constantly chasing stage wins – proved costly in the end.

“The best thing would be to get the yellow jersey on Stage 20,” he said.

“When you have an opportunity, you have to take it,” Pogacar added, responding to a question about the hilly opening stage in the rolling green Bilbao countryside that would normally suit him.

“But you need to hold your horses. You learn every year. We will try to do better in how to win the Tour. Last year I was strong enough to do it, but maybe didn’t approach it right.”

Vingegaard, meanwhile, is not buying into that.

“Actually, I would expect him to attack (early in the race), a bit like last year,” he said.

“I’ll just have to be ready for it. We will need to do our best and see what we can do. I feel good, I feel ready, I’m where I want to be. As champion, you could say I’m the hunted man. But, believe me, I’ll be hunting too.”

The race will hit the Pyrenees after only five days with the first summit finish in Cauterets on Stage 6 after going up the punishing Col du Tourmalet, while pure sprinters might have a chance to shine the following day in Bordeaux.

This is where Mark Cavendish could break the all-time record for stage wins that he currently shares with Merckx on 34 Tour victories.

Behind Vingegaard and Pogacar, the battle to finish on the podium will rage on but none of those contenders could realistically expect to win the title.

Jai Hindley, Ben O’Connor, Mikel Landa, Enric Mas and Tom Pidcock all have a shot at the podium, as do Frenchmen David Gaudu and Romain Bardet, but home fans will likely need to wait at least another year for a first French winner since 1985.

Thibaut Pinot, who was agonisingly close to winning in 2019 before he was forced to abandon the race two days from the finish, will be on a farewell Tour in his last season. After taking fifth place overall on the Giro d’Italia, the 33-year-old crowd favourite will certainly provide some tear-jerking moments.

While Pinot is on his way out, 2019 champion Egan Bernal is making his comeback to the Tour since withdrawing injured in 2020. The Colombian has recovered from a high-speed crash in 2022 which left him with back, leg, knee and chest injuries. REUTERS, AFP