Stat Attack - The greatest Tour de France rivalry gets even more greatester

As if we needed more proof that Pogačar and Vingegaard are unrivalled rivals

Tadej Pogačar and Jonas Vingegaard didn’t race against each other last week which makes some people cranky. They both won. Pogačar at the UAE Tour and Vingegaard at the Volta ao Algarve.

These two riders are quite different and yet both are relentless winning machines. They have finished first and second in the past four Tours de France. In the early season in each of the four years following those Tours, Pogačar has won his first stage race on all four occasions - a Volta a Catalunya, a Volta a Andalucia and two UAE Tours.

For the past three years, Vingegaard has also won his first stage race of the year - a Volta ao Algarve and two O Gran Caminos. The only thing preventing a clean sweep of both riders having won their first stage race for the past four years running was Pog himself as he was present and unstoppable at Vingegaard’s first stage race of 2022, Tirreno-Adriatico, where the Danish rider finished second.

You might find yourself thinking that it’s probably normal for the riders who finish first and second at the Tour de France to be winning stage races immediately the following year. This is, I think, a rational thought to have. But you would be absolutely wrong.

Before I dazzle you with the stats I think I should give you the conclusion first. Much like that episode of the West Wing where Chandler Bing figures out the vice-president was having an affair and is forced to resign. The plot was too complicated to follow, so to make it make sense, they showed us the vice-president resigning in the opening scene and then cut to several days earlier, so that we could sort-of follow the intricate plot because we already knew where it was leading.