Breaking Down the Odds, Risks & Rewards of Tadej Pogačar's Bold Giro-Tour Double Attempt

Plus Weekly Transfer Analysis Part 6: Israel-Premier Tech & Intermarché-Wanty

At the end of the 2023 Tour de France, the consensus view was that to defeat Jonas Vingegaard and win his third Tour de France title, Tadej Pogačar needed to significantly narrow his race schedule and ambitions in 2024 relative to his sprawling 2023 campaign.

However, just a few months after learning that lesson, the transcendent superstar appears to have thrown caution to the wind by announcing that instead of focusing on the Tour de France in 2024, he would be significantly widening his scope this coming season by attempting the near-impossible Giro d’Italia/Tour de France double, while also targeting Olympic gold in early August, World Championships in late September before finishing off the season with an attempt at winning his fourth-consecutive Il Lombardia in early October.

Pogačar’s 2024 Schedule
3/4: Strade Bianche
3/16: Milan-San Remo
3/18-3/24: Volta a Catalunya
4/21: Liège-Bastogne-Liège
5/4-5/26: Giro d’Italia
6/29-7/21: Tour de France
7/27-8/3: Olympic Games TT & RR
9/13-9/15: GP Québec & Montreal
9/29: World Championships RR
10/12: Il Lombardia

Why this is shocking, and what it means for Pogačar and the other Tour contenders in 2024:
While this race schedule certainly mixes things up for Pogačar sets up a great Giro d’Italia, where we will see two of the sport’s biggest stars, Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogačar, duke it out for stages, and potentially even the overall title, I can’t express just how shocking this news was to me and just how much it helps Jonas Vingegaard at the Tour de France.

• Even though Pogačar is attempting to leverage an easier-than-normal Giro route to get an ‘easy’ grand tour win on the board before heading to the Tour (he hasn’t won a grand tour since 2021) and potentially complete a historic Giro-Tour sweep, racing any three-week race, even one with a relatively mild course, is still incredibly difficult, especially due to the trend of line-to-line racing in modern cycling.

• This means Pogačar’s decision to race drastically shifts the odds in favor of Vingegaard to win the Tour and also means Primož Roglič has a much better chance than he would have had otherwise.

  • After the Pogačar announcement, betting markets have Vingegaard at -155 (61% chance of winning) to win the Tour, while Pogačar has dropped to +300 (25% chance) and Roglič is up to +500 (16.7%).

• To highlight just how difficult the feat of contesting both the Giro and Tour, in the 100+ years of cycling history, only seven riders have won both races in the same season, with Marco Pantani double a quarter of a century ago being the last time it occurred (tests would later reveal Pantani used EPO to complete the feat).

  • Since Pantani accomplished this, only three extremely talented riders have come close to the double, only to fall short due to fatigue at the Tour.

    • 2015: Alberto Contador- Giro 1st & Tour 5th

    • 2018: Chris Froome-Giro 1st & Tour 3rd

    • 2018: Tom Dumoulin-Giro 2nd & Tour 2nd

The Risks
Pogačar is certainly more talented than any of these three riders, has already redefined what a rider is capable of in modern cycling, and would ascend into the upper echelon of the sport’s greats if he could win both races, but this attempt seems like a bridge too far and carries a significant amount of risk.

• In the last two Tours, Pogačar has been outclassed by Vingegaard in the race’s toughest mountain stages.

  • Since the only way to remedy this weakness is to lessen his racing load and focus more on specific high-altitude training camps prior to the Tour, this decision to double up at the Giro and Tour seems ill-advised.

• Also, it is incredibly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a rider who finishes second to the same rider at the Tour multiple times to shift their focus the following season while still in their prime. In fact, when big champions start targeting the Giro after winning the Tour, it is incredibly rare for them to come back and win the Tour again.

  • After winning the Giro in 2015 and 2018, Contador and Froome never again won the Tour de France.

• Additionally, if Pogačar shows up to the Tour and looks subpar after the Giro, it will be hard for him to avoid the narrative that he was running from a fair fight with Vingegaard at the Tour and hedged against being left with yet another runner-up place at the Tour by getting a Giro win in beforehand.

The Rewards & Logic
On the flip side, one has to imagine Pogačar signed a highly lucrative seven-figure contract with RCS to make their marque races the centerpieces of his season (Lance Armstrong and Chris Froome each received between €2-€3 million to start the Giro).

• Making large amounts of money is nice, and I’d imagine Pogačar will enjoy having a few extra million burning a hole in his pocket for doing exactly what he would be doing anyway to prepare for the Tour (riding his bike a lot, oftentimes up mountains very fast).

Also, we can’t underestimate the morale boost Pogačar could receive from getting a grand tour win before the start of the Tour.

• Heading into yet another Tour duel with Vingegaard with a Giro win under his belt could potentially take pressure off Pogačar.

Sepp Kuss won the 2023 Vuelta a España after racing a very strong Tour de France, after completing all three grand tours in a single season.

• Perhaps modern training science has potentially shown that with proper training, nutrition, and recovery, a top rider can actually prepare for a three-week race by racing one just a few weeks prior.

If he is somehow able to pull off the double, Pogačar would immediately enter the upper echelons of the sport’s all-time greats before he even heads into the back half of the season where he could win Olympic gold, a World title, and yet another one-day Monument.

• We don’t yet know if this is a great or terrible idea, but we do know that RCS’ aggressive recruitment of Van Aert and Pogačar for its grand tour has certainly added much-needed publicity around the Giro and made it match-watch TV for any dedicated cycling fan.

Weekly Transfer Analysis Part 6:

To continue our in-depth transfer analysis of every top team going into the 2024 season, I’ve continued to select two teams that have had polar opposite experiences as teams over the last few years, as well as in the transfer market so far this off-season, but have broken from form slightly by selecting one WorldTour and one second-division (ProTeam) team: Intermarché-Wanty and Israel-Premier Tech.

Catch Up:
Part 1: Bora-Hansgrohe & Soudal-QuickStep
Part 2: Lidl-Trek & Ineos
Part 3: Bahrain-Victorious & Astana
Part 4: Groupama-FDJ & Jayco-ALUla
Part 5: Visma-Rent a Bike & Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale

Israel-Premier Tech

• Notable new signings: Pascal Ackerman (UAE), George Bennett (UAE), Hugo Hofstetter (Arkéa), Jake Stewart (FDJ), Ethan Vernon (Soudal-QuickStep), Riley Sheehan (Denver Disruptors)

• Notable departing riders: Sebastian Berwick (Caja-Rural), Giacomo Nizzolo (Q36.5), Ben Hermans (Cofidis), Sep Vanmarcke (retired), Daryl Impey (retired)

• Notable unsigned riders: Domenico Pozzovivo

• Total Riders In: 10

• Total Riders Out: 10

• 2024 Roster Spots Remaining: 0

• 2023 UCI Team Ranking Position: 16th

• Pro Cycling Stats Points In/Out: +406

After falling victim to relegation from the sport's top flight at the end of the 2022 season, the now second-division squad had a slightly improved 2023, but, relative to teams competing to get back into the sport's top tier, had a thoroughly mediocre campaign. While they had a few standout performances from previously unknown riders, like Derek Gee coming out of nowhere to become their 3rd highest points-scoring rider, and they saw young riders like Corbin Strong and Matthew Riccitello continue to develop, and veteran stalwart Michael Woods deliver with a Tour de France stage win, the team was ultimately dragged down in the aggregate by underperformances across the board by their highly-paid veteran riders. But, likely as a response to this, management was extremely aggressive this off-season by going out and signing 10 new riders, including a strong batch of quality young, while sending 10 riders out.