If there was ever any doubt as to just how good Tadej Pogačar is, there can now be no question after he completed a famous Tour de France victory in Nice.
Of course, other kinds of doubts are a spectre that any grand tour winner has to accept as part and parcel of being the most visible champion of a sport with such a chequered past.
But we’ll get to that.
For the time being, it’s worth underlining just what an astonishing feat the affable, 25-year-old Slovenian has just accomplished.
He won six stages in as dominant a Giro d’Italia victory as there has been in almost 60 years
And now, after taking out the final-stage time trial for another half-dozen stage wins to complete his third Tour de France crown against three of the best grand tour riders of this generation, he is the first rider to complete the Giro-Tour double since Marco Pantani did so in 1998.
Of course, Jonas Vingegaard, champion of the two previous Tours de France, cannot have been at his best despite his statements to the contrary after the shocking crash that could have cost him his career, or worse, at the Tour of the Basque Country in April.
Third-place finisher Remco Evenepoel may have already won a rainbow jersey and a Vuelta a España, but the reigning world time trial champion is still relatively unproven in major stage races and was in his debut Tour.
And then there’s Pogačar’s countryman, Primož Roglič, whose luck at the world’s most prestigious stage race could not be worse than if he encountered a clowder of black cats on a training ride that caused him to detour under a ladder, sending him careering into a shop specialising only in antique mirrors.
Nevertheless, Pogačar stands above them all.
