BIG ISSUES

1 THREE’S A CHARM

Back-to-back Tour de France wins, combined with astonishing early 2022 form that saw him win on terrain as varied as Tirreno-Adriatico and Strade Bianche – as well as coming a tactical blunder away from winning the Tour of Flanders – puts Tadej Pogačar in a seemingly impregnable position. Still only 23, it’s this rare ability to win at all races, in all conditions, that has seen him dubbed ‘the new Merckx’ – admittedly, the latest in a long line of riders to be given this poison chalice, but perhaps the first to actually live up to it.

Over the past couple of seasons, there are few stage races that he’s entered which he hasn’t ended up winning and, with his UAE Team Emirates squad continuing to add talent to back him up on the road, including George Bennett from Team Jumbo-Visma, the team not only have a formidable leader but an increasingly powerful unit. Bennett arrives from the team of Pogačar’s chief rival, Primož Roglič, who will be hoping for better luck than the dismal time he had last summer, when he crashed heavily on stage 3 and was