Tadej Pogacar will be ‘force to be reckoned with’ at 2023 Tour de France – Bradley Wiggins

Tadej Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) will already be thinking about the 2023 Tour de France after seeing his three-peat dream snuffed out by Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma), according to Bradley Wiggins.

Pogacar had forced a mistake from his rival as Vingegaard swerved wildly out of a corner on Stage 18 – only avoiding a nasty crash by unclipping his left shoe and veering dangerously across the road. But the Dane latched back onto Pogacar, who then overcooked a corner and slid out on the gravel on the outside of the road.

Then, in a remarkable twist, Vingegaard decided to coast down the mountain and wait for the man whose aggressive riding had almost unseated him just moments earlier, with the pair sharing an iconic handshake.

And Wiggins believes that his class in defeat is a promising sign as he targets vengeance next year.

“That guy is something special and he’s proved that the last couple of years,” said 2012 champion Wiggins.

“Sometimes when you taste defeat like he has and the way he’s handled it afterwards, the sportsmanship he’s shown, that smile on his face… underneath there’s a burning fire and he’s already thinking about next year.

“He’s going to learn from this now because it’s not until you taste defeat and failure that you come back stronger, and I think he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with in the next couple of years.”

Robbie McEwen added on Pogacar: “It’s going to add fuel to his competitive fire going into next year, he’s going to analyse the mistakes that were made, he’s going to rectify those, he’s going to come out swinging for next year.”

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