Alex Dowsett on the ITV commentary noted that Pogacar is still wearing bandages and I suspect some of his apparent malaise in the last 9 days might be attributable to the stage 11 crash, which was not trivial. I do wonder if his exertions on stages 12 and 13 saw him writing cheques that his body was very reluctant to cash. Interestingly, Tom Danielson (who against all my prejudices says some quite interesting things on occasion) made an interesting observation in one of his podcasts that crashes take far more out of cyclists than people like us would imagine.
As for MVDP as the best classics rider, I have no problem with that as a statement (MSR, PR, RV). We are collectively extraordinarily lucky to be watching him and even luckier that Pogacar has been challenging him over the last 3 years.
As for MVDP as the best classics rider, I have no problem with that as a statement (MSR, PR, RV). We are collectively extraordinarily lucky to be watching him and even luckier that Pogacar has been challenging him over the last 3 years.