Mountain route for revengeful Tadej Pogacar

(Paris) The record of 30 passes spanned by the Tour de France 2023 route unveiled on Thursday offers a huge playground for Tadej Pogacar, double winner ousted by the Dane Jonas Vingegaard: “I will come back to win”, warned the Slovenian .

Not known for his wait-and-see attitude, the turbulent Tadej will not have to wait to stand up on the pedals during the 2023 Tour.

After the first two stages for punchers, a now classic of the Great Loop, the peloton – leaving from the Basque Country requires – will find the Pyrenees from the fifth stage. With an arrival in Laruns, where the Slovenian phenomenon signed his first success in the Tour de France in 2020.

“We will climb the Pyrenees almost from the start, the first week will be really hard”, predicts the 24-year-old climber.

This fits the temperament of the leader of UAE-Emirates, on the attack from the fifth stage this summer, in the cobblestones towards Arenberg. The gain had been meager, only thirteen seconds over Jonas Vingegaard, and even less the next day during his success at Longwy, ten seconds of bonuses.

With the passes of Soudet (15.1 km at 7.2%) and Marie-Blanque (7.7 km at 8.6%) from the fifth day of the 2023 Tour, its sports director Mauro Gianetti does not intend to moderate his early ardor next year.

“Important first week” and “useful seconds”

“Tadej is Tadej, we have to let him do it even if we will necessarily try to develop logical tactics according to the opponents, explained the Swiss on Thursday. The first week will be very important, a few seconds taken will be useful at the end. »

The reinforcements in the team too with eight mountain stages out of the 21 on the course, the battles may not be limited to one or two queen stages ticked off by all the formations of the peloton.

“We weren’t the strongest team in the last two editions, Jumbo and Ineos were stronger than us. You have to be realistic, recognizes Mauro Giannetti. Even if we have good, promising youngsters, we had to look at how to strengthen ourselves with riders like Adam Yates or Felix Grossschartner. »

Only the 17^e stage, arriving in Courchevel and offering once again, after 2020, a final on the Col de la Loze, is a scarecrow between its length (28.4 km at 6%), its altitude (2304 meters) and its last kilometers in permanent break of slope. “It will be the queen stage”, agrees Pogacar.

New duel with Vingegaard?

Jonas Vingegaard, outgoing winner, will discover in the race these roller coasters which only go up. Discreet since his coronation – he has only competed in two races – the Dane skipped the presentation of the course on Thursday, but intends to compete, he said in an interview with Cyclingnews the day before.

Conversely, there is little chance that Pogacar will have to watch the other cycling sensation next summer, the new world champion Remco Evenepoel.

The only time trial of the 2023 edition (22 uneven kilometers) had to convince the Belgian, recent winner of the Tour of Spain, to opt for the Giro.

Between her career plan providing for a first appearance on the Big Loop in 2024 and the three times of the Giro (for more than 70 km in total), Evenepoel, bronze medalist in the discipline at the last Worlds, has every chance of preferring the Italian roads.

Like a wink, the corsa rosa proposes an arrival at the Tre Cime di Lavaredo where a certain Eddy Merckx, under the snow, had stunned the Giro-1968, his first grand tour won the year of his 23 years, that the “Little Cannibal” will celebrate him next January.

The low time trial mileage on the Tour can also bring other riders like David Gaudu into the mix. “Few times, that suits me,” smiled the Breton climber, at the foot of the podium this summer.

“The fact that there are few time trials will make the general classification denser, believes Mauro Gianetti. It’s a much more open Tour de France than usual, so I think Alaphilippe can also be a rider to take into account. »