Tour de France 2024

 Thoughts on LeTour 2024

The race is "done and dusted" as the Brits like to say so here are Zio Lorenzo's thoughts on Le Beeg Shew 2024.

When the guy you like wins it always is a great edition of LeTour, right? And when he's beaten it's one of the worst editions ever. No surprise there and that seems to be the case with this one - the fans of the pasty Dane thought it dull, dull, dull while Pogacar fans enjoyed their man's never-say-die, let's have fun, it's a race so the object is to win attitude.

First, chapeau to Jonas Vingegaard just for showing-up. Sure, Pogacar showed up short-of-form after a crash awhile back but it wasn't anything like the 2023 Tour champ's. Whether he really wanted to race or not, he was there...did he have a choice in a team where one GT winner went to another team, another was out with Covid while their other big star was also recovering from a crash? This guy never looks like he's having much fun, but maybe this year was worse as he really would have rather skipped it?

But he was there and some will say just as good as before based on various calculations/comparisons with previous performances, but Pogacar was simply better, despite all the residual fatigue he would supposedly suffer after winning the Giro d'Italia a month before. Nobody's won "the double" since Marco Pantani in 1998 and the conventional wisdom was you had be doped-to-the-gills to do it. Pogacar was supposed to collapse in the Tour's third week while Vingegaard would reach top form. So much for convention!

But even if "your guy" was beaten, how can you not admire the winner? Or the guy who won the green jersey? Or the guy who took home the polka-dot version? Or the guy who finally won a sprint to break the TdF stage win record held by Eddy Merckx? That would have likely all happened whether "your guy" won or lost, so what's not to like?

And what about the best young rider? This guy showed a lot of maturity for a change. Even his (IMHO well deserved) criticism of Visma's "lack of balls" was delivered in a manner that showed the kid is growing up. Zio predicted tantrums, crashes and ultimate withdrawal but Remco proved him wrong. Zio was also wrong about the green jersey. After last year he thought the "bad boys" of Alpecin had it wrapped up again. Ooops!

There was plenty of whining about the race not finishing on the Champs in Paris...seemingly from the same people who usually call the last day a bore-fest until the final few kilometers. Zio's take was it was the whining mostly from Cavendish fans, but the fans lining the race route in Nice on Sunday rivaled Paris based on TV images.

Despite the heat, there wasn't much moaning about "weather protocols" or other bleating from the rider's union prez, other than his declaration about the fan throwing potato chips. Nothing about the UCI's draconian sanctions for riders getting a kiss from their wife or watching their teammate win on the big screen...he's too busy for that I guess? Whatever happened to banning hookless wheel rims? But there were no big equipment failures, no life-threatening injuries and few big crashes this year, something else to be happy about. 

There also seemed to be fewer costumed idiots getting in the way...perhaps the policing was better? TV images did show cops shoving people out of the way or even swerving towards them on motos to clear a path for the racers so perhaps ASO has decided to crack down?

Chapeau to LeTour 2024 and Tadei Pogacar!!! We're going to Paris, can he win there too? He mentioned the World's in his post-race comments...if he wins the Olympic gold we might be shopping for airtix to Zurich!!!