The 2024 Tour de France will be a unique one for the history books. Starting on 29 June, it won’t end with a run into Paris, instead finishing in Nice with an individual time trial due to the Paris Summer Olympics. As well as this, it’ll run through San Marino for the first time and see the Grand Départ commence in Italy to commemorate the nation’s first general classification winner, Ottavio Bottecchia, 100 years ago.
Regardless of these changes, there’s one rider at the forefront of just about everyone’s estimations. Slovenian superstar Tadej Pogačar looks poised to make up for the slips of the last couple of years and take back the yellow jersey. Given his recent headline-snatching performance in Italy and the unfortunate state of his closest competitors, it’s easy to see why he’s riding into the Tour as the heavy favourite.
Last year, the Tour de France saw its reigning champion retain the title for the second time in four years. Two years after Pogačar got himself back-to-back general classification wins, Jonas Vingegaard for Team Jumbo-Visma matched the Slovenian’s feat. It left Pogačar to take victories where he could, like with the Stage 20 pride-salvaging win that still kept him seven minutes at 29 seconds back of his Danish counterpart.
Closing in on the main event of the cycling calendar, Pogačar was reportedly coaxed into participating in his first-ever Giro d’Italia earlier this year. It’s rumoured that race organisers offered him a hefty fee to ride around some of the most scenic parts of Italy. He’d been challenged before to race, and once he finally did, he obliterated the competition.
His domination of six stage wins and a margin of nine minutes and 56 seconds in the bank put him on a level not seen since Eddy Merckx in 1973 and Dani Martínez in 1965. The reports certainly don’t overstate just how impressive Pogačar was on his Giro debut. Soon after, the man who looked to have plenty left in the tank turned his focus to the Tour de France, essentially dismissing a potential run at the third crown, Vuelta a España.
