Last man standing

Some will point to his time-trial win in Laval on Stage 5. Or perhaps his performance on Stage 8 in the Alps to Le Grand-Bornand. Or the following day to Tignes, where although he didn’t win either stage, he claimed large amounts of time and chipped even bigger chunks from the morale of his opponents. Or maybe his back-to-back stage wins in the Pyrenees, although by then the Tour de France was all but done and dusted.

However, arguably the most significant thing that Tadej Pogačar did in the course of winning his second successive Tour was actually something that he did not do. He didn’t fall off and seriously injure himself in any of the huge crashes that marred the early few stages of this year’s race.

‘There will end up being deaths. And I don’t want to have to call up one of my rider’s families to tell them what has happened’

School of hard knocks

So swiftly does the narrative of the Tour move on that by the time we reached the Alps it had almost been forgotten that so many of the pre-race favourites were injured and either out of the race or struggling.

This was all to the defending champion’s considerable advantage. It’s not often that a rider who has crashed heavily at any point in