Tadej Pogacar "is well on his way to doing the Giro-Tour double" - French legend Richard Virenque on Tour de France spectacle

Richard Virenque was the face of French cycling for many years in the 90's and one of the Tour de France's figures having won the KOM jersey countless times. The mountains were his terrain, and the former pro analyzes what has been nothing short of a spectacular Tour where Tadej Pogacar is in his eyes close to achieving something historic.

"The race is keeping its promises, even if we lost one of the 4 'fantastics' with Primoz Roglic," Virenque said in an interview with Cyclism'Actu. "Like every year, he is affected by bad luck, maybe also because he is not skillful enough on a bike. Jonas Vingegaard is impressive, after three months without competition, he is in contact with the untouchable Tadej Pogacar. Vingegaard must feel better and better, he attacked him on the 15th stage. For the moment, Pogacar has the upper hand on the Tour, but he is not safe from a reversal of the situation in the last days. And Remco Evenepoel, hats off, for his first Tour, he is on the podium and he won the time trial, it's great".

The Top 3 of the Tour at the moment are all showing their very best level in the second week of the race, but truly all three have been at their best since the start of the race with terrific performances ever since the Madona di San Luca on stage 2. "Pogacar's advantage is that Vingegaard is coming back from an injury. The more things go on, the more things will reverse. He took advantage of this advantage to gain 3 minutes. Now, he has to manage this end of the Tour well," Virenque argues, although the Slovenian has unexpectedly made a huge difference over both stages in the Pyrenees, specially thriving on Plateau de Beille after Visma executed their plan.

"He is having an exceptional year and is well on his way to doing the Giro-Tour double. For the moment, everything is good for him, but we are never safe. He is hungry for victory, since he was pushed aside by Vingegaard over the last two years. He is the person who blocked his path and Pogacar is very wound up. But he knows very well that the threat is always present, 3 minutes is not yet a safety net," Virenque, now 54, adds.

It is incredible what has happened this Sunday with a full-gas mountain stage from start to finish which then led to climbing numbers never before seen in the sport from both Pogacar and Vingegaard. A rivalry for the ages... "Records are made to be broken. The equipment, the way of recovering, the diet... everything is evolving. It's 2024, we are moving towards a super strong evolution of the rider and the optimization of the athlete," Virenque argued.