{"id":67493,"date":"2025-08-14T22:59:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T22:59:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/67493\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T22:59:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T22:59:06","slug":"in-the-final-week-of-the-tour-pogacar-couldnt-shake-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/67493\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cIn the final week of the Tour, Pogacar couldn\u2019t shake him”"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nIt didn\u2019t take long for the cycling world to bite back \u2014 and few more forcefully than former professional and DS turned commentator Brian Holm<\/a>, who pulled no punches in his rebuttal during an episode of the Caf\u00e9 Eddy podcast. \u201cI couldn\u2019t even be bothered to read it. I don\u2019t know if he actually said it. But if he did, it\u2019s downright disrespectful \u2014 bordering on idiotic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holm, who raced professionally during the 1980s and 90s, went on to serve in management roles at Soudal – Quick-Step after his retirement, and as such has a deep knowledge of the sport. Holm took issue not just with the claim itself but with what he sees as Nygaard\u2019s fundamental misunderstanding of the sport. \u201cNygaard\u2019s never raced. I honestly don\u2019t think he understands cycling \u2014 not at its core. He doesn\u2019t get that cyclists always believe they can win, no matter the odds.\u201d<\/p>\n

Far from portraying Vingegaard as a beaten man, Holm pointed to the resilience the defending champion showed \u2014 particularly in the closing week of the Tour, where the expected dominance from Pogacar failed to fully materialise. \u201cIn the final week, Pogacar couldn\u2019t shake him. To suggest Vingegaard is playing second fiddle is absolute nonsense.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holm\u2019s critique also reignited a personal spat with Nygaard, who has previously worked in PR and team management roles but has never raced professionally. In a pointed response on X (formerly Twitter), Nygaard fired back: \u201cCycling\u2019s answer to Jan Grarup (Brian Holm) says I don\u2019t know a thing about the sport because I\u2019ve never raced. That must be awkward for his co-host, who\u2019s never even worked in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

While some interpreted the comparison to Grarup \u2014 a photojournalist recently discredited for fabricating parts of his reporting \u2014 as an attack on Holm\u2019s integrity, Nygaard later clarified that his remark referred more to attitude than scandal. \u201cDenim, macho jewellery, I\u2019ve been there and done that, everyone else is a soft lad, my era was the toughest \u2014 that kind of thing,\u201d he posted in a follow-up.<\/p>\n

Behind the media barbs lies a more enduring question: what defines greatness in cycling? Is it dominance over rivals, the number of Tours won, or the quality of the opposition? And how do we measure a rider like Vingegaard \u2014 already a two-time Tour champion, yet often painted in the media as more methodical than mercurial?<\/p>\n

Holm, for one, doesn\u2019t see the need to choose. \u201cPogacar is a generational talent. But so is Jonas. That\u2019s why they\u2019re so good \u2014 because the other one is there,\u201d he concludes.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It didn\u2019t take long for the cycling world to bite back \u2014 and few more forcefully than…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":67494,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-67493","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67494"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}