Tadej Pogačar's no-gift policy will come back to haunt him 🇸🇮
'In the end, when I finish my career, I will probably not speak to 99% of the peloton' says the yellow jersey
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The final result of this year’s Tour de France might seem like a foregone conclusion, but eventually, perhaps in years to come, Tadej Pogačar’s naive, no-gift stance will come back to haunt him.
In 1995, en route to his fifth and final Tour de France victory, Miguel Indurain and his Banesto team appeared on the brink of disaster. Laurent Jalabert from the arch rival ONCE team had launched a daring raid on the stage to Mende, and despite starting the day with a huge deficit, was soon on his way to taking the yellow jersey. Banesto and Indurain, with their backs against the wall, were forced to call in every favour they had ever issued in order to manage the crisis, and the likes of Kelme, Brescialat, and MG Maglificio - Technogym all broke traditional protocol and came to the ailing yellow jersey’s aid in order to limit Jalabert’s lead.
The alliance eventually nullified the Frenchman’s attack, although he still won the stage, and Indurain’s grip on the jersey survived.
The Spaniard was able to call on such assistance because he was never preoccupied with winning stages. They were irrelevant when compared to the ultimate aim of winning the race outright, and he gifted them out on regular occasions. The Indurain era was characterised by monotonous racing when compared to what we’re seeing now in the Pogačar years, but it was certainly a more astute and calculated way of winning.
13 stages into this year’s Tour and Pogačar isn’t just lightyears ahead of the rest, he’s snaffling up stage wins for fun. It’s not his fault that he has the best threshold of any of the riders in the race, nor that ASO keeps designing mountain top finishes with 7.5% gradients that perfectly suit his characteristics.