While the now quadruple winner of the Tour de France faces a violent wind of distrust against a background of doping, its popularity takes a sacred blow.
As expected, Tadej Pogacar won his fourth Tour de France on Sunday. And as last year, the Slovenian appeared completely untouchable, finishing more than four minutes ahead of his closest rival, the Danish Jonas Vingegaard, and picking up no less than four stage victories despite a little less well in the third week.
Despite his panache and his sense of spectacle, the domination of the leader of the UAE-Emirates team, sometimes tinged with arrogance, is increasingly bad. Especially since the world number one, which crushes almost from March to October, must deal with strong suspicions of doping.
For many specialists, the performances of Tadej Pogacar, capable of defeating the ascent times of the worst symbols of doping years, are indeed physiologically impossible, which inevitably suggests that the native of Klanec and his team have crossed the yellow line. The world champion also pays there obviously the past of his sport but also of his leaders, Mauro Gianetti and Andrej Hauptman, convinced of doping when they were runners.
Tadej pugacar only fourth
This distrust is not without consequence for Tadej Pogacar. This is evidenced by the results of a survey published this Sunday in the gallery. Despite his status as the best runner in the world, even in history for some, he does not appear as the fourth favorite runner of the French, with only 15% of the vote.
The winner of the Tour is preceded by two French people, Julian Alaphilippe and Kevin Vauquelin, the double world champion leaving the vote with 34% of the votes in front of the French revelation of the Tour, which follows with 26%. But Tadej Pogacar must also bow before Mathieu Van der Poel, on the third step of the podium with 16%. The other runners are much further. Fifth, Jonas Vingegaard must be satisfied with 7%.
