Can you really Poga\u010dar-proof a bike race? It\u2019s a question worth asking when you\u2019re designing a Tour de France route in an era when Tadej Poga\u010dar keeps winning just about everything he enters. The former (and might very well have been three-time, were it not for his crash during Stage 8 of La Vuelta A Espa\u00f1a) world champion doesn\u2019t follow any traditional playbook when he wins races.<\/p>\n
Racing \u00e0 la Poga\u010dar<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a guy who won Strade Bianche after riding solo for 81 km, then went on to win back-to-back world titles with solo efforts of roughly 67 km in Kigali and 52 km in Zurich. Poga\u010dar doesn\u2019t exactly need a perfectly tailored course to make a race interesting. Sometimes he just needs a road, a bike and a frankly ridiculous amount of time between him and the finish line.
Here\u2019s a guy who weighs around 66 kg\u2013a climber\u2019s build, and not a \u201cbeefy\u201d Classics body like Mathieu van der Poel or Wout van Aert, and still almost wins Paris-Roubaix.<\/p>\n
The 2027 Tour<\/p>\n
The 2027 Tour de France features 71 km of time trials, a hefty amount of racing against the clock that could help shape the general classification. But whether that\u2019s enough to put the Slovenian in difficulty remains to be seen. When the route was announced recently, there was much chatter that the TT kilometres\u2013much more than in recent years\u2013were there to throw a curveball into Pogi\u2019s attempt to take a record (yeah, yeah, someone else won seven once) sixth win. But, it\u2019s not like he sucks at time trials. It\u2019s just that a guy like the world and Euro TT champ is better. But remember, Pogacar still put 6 minutes into him at this year\u2019s Tour. Sure, there was only one contre le montre (apart from the TTT) and he was only 30 seconds behind the Belgian.<\/p>\n
Alex Carera on the route<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why his agent, Alex Carera, isn\u2019t convinced the race should be labelled as some sort of attempt to try and turn the screws on him.<\/p>\n
Might Paul Seixas have surprising 2027 Grand Tour plans?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know if you can call the Tour de France \u2018anti-Pogacar\u2019,\u201d Carera said in an interview with Radio Corsa<\/a>, as reported by CyclingUpToDate<\/a>. \u201cWhether these time trials will put him in difficulty or not, we\u2019ll see. He\u2019s still the rider to beat.\u201d<\/p>\n I mean, let\u2019s face it. Poga\u010dar has shown he can win on all sorts of terrain. On flats, up hills, down hills, on cobbles, on dirt, whatever.<\/p>\n Adding more TT kilometres doesn\u2019t automatically mean the Tour has found a way to stop him.<\/p>\n Tour director Christian Prudhomme has also defended the route right after it was announced. Despite lots of folks suggesting otherwise, the intention isn\u2019t to build a course specifically to frustrate the four-time winner. (Although it may create a bit more suspense, he admitted.)<\/p>\n Prudhomme defends 2027 TdF<\/p>\n