5-times Tour de France winner Miguel Indurain has added his voice to the refrain of main figures within the sport backing Tadej Pogačar for a second straight victory in biking’s flagship race this summer time.
Indurain argued that even with out the lengthy checklist of triumphs the UAE Team Emirates – XRG star has racked up in his profession, Pogačar’s 2024 Grand Boucle win alone is sufficient to give the Slovenian the standing of high Tour de France favorite.
“His power, his workforce and his motivation make him the massive contender,” Indurain advised Spanish information company EFE throughout a sequence of homages for the centenary of the delivery of Nineteen Fifties Basque biking trailblazer Jesus Loroño. “He’ll begin [the season] because the favorite.”
“Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) began out as high Tour contender final yr, as a result of he’d received in 2023, even when his season was then badly affected by that fall in Itzulia,” Indurain argued.
“And being favorite is one thing it’s important to present from daily, too, in a sport the place there’s at all times a number of potential setbacks, and the place yearly, every race is totally totally different.”
A fan of lengthy phases and ‘the legendary climbs’ in his time, Indurain recognised that nowadays races are “shorter and punchier, the climbs are approach steeper and there is a rather more aggressive method to racing.”
“All the pieces is rather more managed than it was once, too. There’s a lot data on the market throughout a race, the liberty you used to need to get into breakaways has disappeared.”
“However that is how it’s nowadays, and it’s important to adapt to that.”
The newest winner of 5 Excursions de France and the one rider ever to take 5 in unbroken succession, from 1991 to 1995, Indurain pointed to Carlos Rodriguez (Ineos Grenadiers), Juan Ayuso and Pablo Torres (each UAE Crew Emirates-XRG) because the figureheads of the following era of Spanish racer.
Nonetheless, Indurain added that in the meanwhile, “we’re missing an [outright] winner, and that makes it a lot harder.”
“A number of [Spanish] riders are approaching sturdy and so they do not simply race in residence groups, they are not petrified of racing for overseas squads. However nowadays there are many potential winners, a number of potential contenders.”
“Nowadays it is win or nothing, too. In the event you simply get a superb end result and never a victory, folks do not give it the identical significance as they used to again in my day.”
