You don't have to go back very far, one year, just one: let's remember July 2020, with no competition yet, waiting for the Vuelta a Burgos to kick off a season of circumstances, fraught with fears and uncertainty. One year later, Tadej Pogačar toasts with the world for the achievement of his second Tour de France.
Two victories in the best race in the world in less than ten months,
that's what Tadej Pogačar has achieved and with him, Gobik's dream debut in the Tour de France.wearing his dreams, the hardest moments and marking the way to a glory that in cycling we do not imagine greater.
In these ten months, Gobik has been an actor in the preparation and execution of the best triumph to which one can aspire.. When Yecla signed a contract with the UAE Team Emirates this winning pact, that Tadej Pogačar would be at the top of the Champs Elysees drawer, with the Arc de Triomphe closing the perspective, was something everyone was thinking about, even if it was in a low voice.
Tadej Pogačar, unappealable on every terrain.
The golden boy of world cycling did not fail. It's like the get there and stay there thing: Winning a Tour is very complicatedto win a Tour is very complicated, to add more, of the chosen ones.
Tadej Pogačar has signed a round triumph, worthy of the highest excellence, without fissures, accompanied by the UAE Team Emirates at key moments, knowing how to measure each effort, calculating each approach, being conservative and ambitious in equal parts, knowing that balance was the key.
Five long minutes have separated him from the second, a world, differences that we have not seen for a long time, are margins that speak of a cyclist who aims to mark an epoch.
And we have seen this luxury in three weeks?
Tadej Pogačar avoided the crashes at the start, brutal and merciless filters that killed some rivals, but not him. They will call him the luck of champions, something that is a must to win anything big, but in his case it is complemented by. an adaptation that borders on perfection.
Already in the first week Tadej Pogačar dominated the time trial,
in an exercise that marked the first differences, both real and mental. A few days later, after overcoming a test that put the UAE Team Emirates to the limit, the Le Creusot stage, he opened up a world on the first day of the Alps.
It was an easy attack, dancing on the machine, overtaking cyclists admiring his pace, he, with that face, as if smiling, as if imagining the prize awaiting him on the podium. He opened a terrible gap, the five minutes that showed up in the general classification in Paris came from that stage and the previous time trial.
He had a moment of cracking, near Mont Ventoux, but he preferred to stretch his income and wait for those who came from behind. He solved the problem and ended up signing the perfect Pyrenees, his team controlled, worked for him and did not want to fail before his delivery. He won on the summits of Portet and Luz Ardiden.He was a different leader, the first to attack, even in yellow, the first to cross the finish line.
Tadej Pogačar, on his back, on his infinite quality, Gobik made his debut in the Tour by signing the yellow, like the central stripe that ran along the collector's item that the UAE Team Emirates wore in the assault on the Champs-Elysées.
This story promises more joy...
Photos BettiniPhoto / Fizza Photo
