Thijs Zonneveld on Tadej Pogacar: "With so many races it is a utopia that he will be good enough to beat a very fit Vingegaard in July"

Tadej Pogacar is hitting headlines all around over the past two days as his unexpected calendar was announced. With the Tour de France still being a goal, Thijs Zonneveld questions his chances of winning if he once again finds a top form Jonas Vingegaard.

"It is that he has not added the Tour of Flanders, the Koekwauzerveen criterium and the Eurovision Song Contest to his calendar, but otherwise Tadej Pogacar simply rides everything," Zonneveld wrote in a column for AD. "After last year's Tour, in which he was beaten by Jonas Vingegaard for the second year in a row, the ball was in the court of Pogacar and his UAE team. What would they do? What was their response to the Jumbo's superiority? What sacrifices would they make, what rates would they cut? The answer: don't delete it. In fact, there will be a big tour: the Giro. So the Great Pogi Show will once again be a large traveling circus."

The Dutch analyst is very keen on the idea that Pogacar loves racing and is not looking to be focusing on the same goals each year. Besides that, his aggressive style of racing and versatility can see him fight for wins all year round, and having found a superior Grand Tour specialist in Jonas Vingegaard, the decision was made to put extra focus on the Giro d'Italia where he stands better chances of succeeding in winning a Grand Tour in 2024.

"Last summer he complained to several riders in the peloton in the last stages. It was too hot, his bike was broken, his team didn't understand it and he didn't feel like preparing himself all year like a monk for that three-week race with Vingegaard. He is a member of the bingo generation: the best riders of today do not want to win one race six times; they prefer to win six different races once," he argues.

Hence, this can also take pressure away from him trying to win the Tour de France, a goal he hasn't achieved for the past two years. "With training camps and altitude training instead of one-day races and with much more attention to nutrition and aerodynamics. But he doesn't want that at all. He wants to race, he wants to play, he wants to put new crosses on his bingo card. It is his strength and his weakness at the same time."

"He puts on a new show every week – in large and small races – but he pays the price when he rides against almost equally talented riders who do focus on one or two goals per year. He has so much class that he will undoubtedly perform here and there, but with so many races it is a utopia that he will be good enough to beat a very fit Vingegaard in July. Duel ruined, that's a shame. It's nice that he wants to play bingo, but cramming your entire year with all the possible races he wants to ride is the other extreme. Not choosing is rarely the right choice in top sport," Zonneveld concludes.