The early season rivalries

In the never ending quest to find narrative everywhere, do we need the Tour contenders to race against each other more often?

All the best bike riders in all the best races all the time. That’s what we want isn’t it? Why is Tadej Pogačar in the desert while Jonas Vingegaard is in Portugal? Why are they denying us the early season showdown that we all want?

Well, do we actually want that?

I don’t.

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Pogačar versus Vingegaard is the greatest Tour de France rivalry in the history of cycling. This is not arguable. It is now a fact. The case could be made for greater rivalries across the sport of cycling in general - Van der Poel vs Van Aert or Saronni vs Moser - but at the Tour de France, nothing even comes close.

The Tour de France provides us with an ever changing cast of main characters. The race was nearly 70 years old before the same two riders finished first and second in consecutive years, that was Eddy Merckx and Joop Zoetemelk in 1970 and 1971. Zoetemelk was involved again along with Bernard Hinault the next time it happened in 1978 and 1979.

Then, depending on how liberal you are with your asterisks, it happened for a third time in 2000 and 2001 when Lance Amstrong beat Jan Ullrich to the yellow jersey twice in a row.

And again, all applicable asteriskses, we had Alberto Contador and Andy Schleck in 2009 and 2010.

That’s it. That’s the list of riders who have finished 1-2 in consecutive Tours. Until now.