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A spectacular Tour to test champion Tadej Pogacar

BarcelonaThe Tour de France is part of our lives. Everyone has had a summer singing the soundtrack of the French race, or looking for a bar near a beach to try to decipher whether there was suffering or control behind Indurain’s grimace. The Tour is like a relationship of those where, at times, it seems like love ends. But he always comes back. Overcome the years in which the long shadow of doping altered podiums once the race was over, cycling is once again experiencing a sweet moment.

A time when a very small country with little tradition, Slovenia, imposes its law. And look, they have mountain roads, the Slovenes, but they were more into skiing or trampoline jumping, the sport that Primoz Roglic practiced until he was 20 years old. Roglic and especially the 23-year-old Tadej Pogacar, the two Slovenes who, when necessary, helped each other by putting their friendship ahead in the discipline of their teams, arrive at thea Big loop as big favorites. The 109th edition of the Tour, which will start far away, in Copenhagen with three stages in Denmark, leaves in second place in the list of favorites the Mallorcan Enric Mas and the veteran Colombian Nairo Quintana. Also Colombian Egan Bernal, champion in 2019, will not be able to be there after he was run over a few months ago while training.

All eyes, however, are taken by the young Tadej Pogacar, champion for the last two years. The young man from the UAE team will try to imitate the British Chris Froome, the last cyclist capable of winning the Tour three times in a row, from 2015 to 2018. Before that you have to go to Indurain to find someone capable of doing so, as all Tours won by American Lance Armstrong are unofficial, after it became known that he had been doped. This year Pogacar already impressed by winning the Strade Bianche race in Siena. It also prevailed in the Tyrrhenian-Adriatic, but played a duller role in Liege-Bastogne-Liège. He then rested a lot and devoted himself to recognizing the mountain ports of the Tour, such as the Galibier.

His compatriot Primoz Roglic, second in 2020, has chosen the roads of the Sierra Nevada to train. Winner at the Paris-Nice in March, the Slovenian will try to overtake his compatriot with the help of cyclists such as the Berguedà-born Sepp Kuss or the Dane Jonas Vingegaard, second in the 2021 Tour and clearly aspiring to the final podium.

And Enric Mas? The Mallorcan from Movistar, in his fourth participation in the Tour, wants to finally get on the podium. The Artà runner, Movistar’s first sword, takes second place in the Vuelta and needs to get rid of the reputation of having a lot of potential, but not getting the key days right. At the age of 27, he has seen some riders with a strong personality leave Movistar, as the team prioritizes him, but the competition for the final podium in Paris will be tough, with the unknown of the level of the Colombian Nairo Quintana (Arkéa-Samsic) , who at 32 has a great track record, winning the Vuelta in 2016, the Giro in 2014 and three podiums in the Tour, where he was second in 2013 and 2015, and third in 2016. Many years ago , however, who cannot aspire to the general, although he claims to be eager to surprise after winning the Tour de Provence and the Tour des Alpes-Maritimes at the beginning of the season. Who will not be there is the Ecuadorian Richard Carapaz (INEOS-Grenadiers), who after the disappointment of the Giro, where he was second after sinking in the penultimate stage, will focus on the Vuelta.

Final stage of the Tour to Paris

The first three stages, on Danish soil, will be territory for sprinters. Denmark is the flattest country in Europe, so the mountain will have to wait. The fifth stage, on July 6, between Lille and Arenberg, will enter Belgium to give us stretches of cobblestones, which will be one of the images of this edition of the Tour. And on Friday 8 will arrive the first mythical summit, the Planche des Belles Filles, where Roglic lost the Tour in 2020. The second stage, with a brief entry into Switzerland, will mean the arrival of the Alps, with the ascent to the Galibier and the Granon on 13 July. The main stage, however, will be the day of the Bastille, July 14, with the same day ascent to the three most mythical peaks of the Alps: the Galibier, the Col de la Croix de Fer and the Alpe d ‘ Huez. And last week it will be time to go down to the Pyrenees, with the stage on July 21 with arrival in Hautacam. Here it should already be clear who will enter dressed in yellow on Sunday July 24 in Paris.

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