The 2022 cycling season advances with two champions on everyone’s lips. Well, actually, with one: Tadej Pogacar. The other is more of a wish than a safe bet: primoz roglic. The beginning of the course has shown a portentous pogacarwho has already accumulated seven wins, one more than the sprinter Fabio Jacobsenand has marked several exhibits such as the Strade Bianche and the stage of Carpegna of the Tyrrhenian-Adriatic. It’s not just that he wins, it’s that he sweeps. Same as him team uae, who has straightened out the wobbles of yesteryear and leads the campaign with 18 wins. If you have heard comparisons with eddy merckx lately, cross out all the names other than Pogacar, especially those that were labeled a priori, before proving anything. And yes, I mean Remco Evenepoel. The brutal authority of double Tour winner generates debates at the height of the Cannibalbecause today he is shown as the most dominant athlete of any discipline in the planet sport. maybe Lewis Hamilton or Novak Djokovic they came to overwhelm so much in the recent past. Not now.
If we look at Tour de France, the mother of all battles, the fan always trusts someone to squeeze number one. With the Ineos down by Egan Bernal’s injurythe closest thing to a anti-Pogacar that exists in the peloton is Roglic, also capable of winning in all seasons of the year and in all the modalities of the sample. But Roglic is not Pogacar. There is still a long way to go until July, and the variables are multiple, but the sensations they project are different. Roglic has always been a more human cyclist, more vulnerable, with bad days, accidents and breakdowns. Last week, in the distance duel that both maintained, Tadej ran over in the Tyrrhenian and Primoz had a hard time in the closing of the Paris-Nice. That does not eliminate him from any forecast, but it makes him more earthly.