Former Spanish cycling great Miguel Indurain has said that he thinks that Tadej Pogačar could follow his own wheeltracks and become the winner of the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in a single season this year.
Indurain won both the Giro and Tour back-to-back in both 1992 and 1993. After Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour titles, Indurain remains the only rider in history to conquer the Tour de France five times in a row.
But while Pogačar has the potential to take both Grand Tours, Indurain told Cyclingnews earlier this week, he warns that the UAE Team Emirates’ rider’s propensity to head off on long-distance breaks could present a problem.
“If you are racing both Grand Tours, you have to be careful how to manage your energy,” Indurain said, “and team support will be critical too, even though he [Pogačar] clearly likes making solo moves.”
Pogačar recently won the Volta a Catalunya with a crushing performance that saw him win by the biggest margin in 64 years and claim four stages, three of them summit finishes.
Asked if Pogačar was able to win both Giro and Tour in one season, Indurain answered "For sure he's got the capacity. Of course, he has."
"In my era, the way we handled the season differently, but it remains a very hard challenge no matter which approach path you take."
Some things don't change, though, and Indurain warned that such strong performances by Pogačar in March could take their toll deeper into the season.
"If he's winning so much now, he could pay the price for that later," Indurain told Cyclingnews.
"But that said, there's so much more data about power output and watts and so on now than there was in my era, it's much easier to manage your effort."
Mentally, he said, the demands of doing two Grand Tours back-to-back for GC were considerable. "The effort you have to make is a big one, even though every rider is different. And then after starting at the Giro, there's the question of holding your form right the way through to the end of the third week of the Tour. That last week could drain him in particular."
At the same time, he says, "It's important just to stay focussed on the race you have in front of you. Each race is different, with its time trials, mountains and so on. You can't be racing the Giro thinking about what might happen in the Tour."
As for the period between the Giro and Tour, "In my era it was different, there was less time. Either way, you have to strike a balance between easing back too much to try and rest and training too hard. That's very difficult."
27 when he won his first Tour, Pogačar is still only 25, but Indurain does not feel that makes a big difference.
"In my day, if you were older you could handle the longer efforts better and your endurance was better so that could have been an advantage. But these days they've got trainers on top of everything and they know how he'll react to different efforts, so that shouldn't be a problem."
For such a major challenge, having a great team is critical, regardless of the era, he says, "and the efforts the leader makes have to be very specific." He agreed that one case in point is that of former Spanish great, Alberto Contador. El Pistolero has often stated that one reason why he did not come closer to 'doing the double' in 2015 was he had had to make a colossal solo effort to win the Giro d'Italia because of a lack of a strong team and then paid the price for that long-term fatigue in the Tour.
"The thing is though," Indurain adds, "that Pogačar's racing style is not based around relying heavily on his team." Indurain watched Pogačar make a colossal long break to win Strade Bianche on TV, he said, "And those efforts end up being paid for in the long run."
"That's the way he is though, and that's not going to change."
Currently at training camp in the Sierra Nevada, Pogačar's next race will be Liège-Bastogne-Liège on April 20th, followed by the Giro d'Italia on May 4th. Having retired nearly 30 years ago, Indurain himself still races for fun in off-road events, with one upcoming challenge, the Skoda Titan Desert event in Morocco, from April 28 - May 3.
