Relentless success in single-day races and the Giro-Tour double: Pogacar and Van der Poel monopolize 2024

To put it mildly, it has been an extremely peculiar cycling spring so far. From February onwards, the focus was on building up to an absolute climax in April. Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert, both in their absolute best form, were expected to engage in a duel in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. Tadej Pogacar and Remco Evenepoel were set to finally cross swords and create fireworks at Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Afterwards, they would join Primoz Roglic and Jonas Vingegaard in preparing for the Tour de France. That is… Until March 27 and April 4. Since then, the dream spectacle season that 2024 was supposed to be lay largely in tatters on or beside the road.

Numerous rib fractures, broken collarbones and other physical injuries later, four of the ‘big six’ are battling against pain, the clock and the reality of what 2024 is turning out to be. What does Van Aert do after missing the Giro? Will Vingegaard make the Tour? How good will Evenepoel be in July? And when will Roglic get back to racing? These are questions that stand in the deep shadow of the physical malaise of the aforementioned star cyclists. Recovery comes first. Now that many of the top riders are in the infirmary, the 2024 cycling year has become a sort of desert, where two enormous gluttons are devouring all they can. Pogacar and Van der Poel are the only two top-fit riders who can win everything, no matter they compete. They are monopolizing 2024 and will continue to do so.

Van der Poel will squeeze every last bit of power from his legs to challenge Pogacar in Liège

Based on recent races, we can assume this. Van der Poel only faced opposition from Mads Pedersen during the flat finale of Gent-Wevelgem. The results are telling. Two minutes in Flanders. Three minutes in Roubaix. Time differences that are downright dizzying. Not to mention Pogacar, showing off with monster solos and raking in an amount of stage wins in the Tour of Catalonia that is humiliating to all other cyclists in the race. A clear conclusion: if Pogacar and Van der Poel are at their best and none of the other six top riders are there to offer resistance, then both men are capable of putting on a one-man show everywhere. Simply put, there is no one else in the peloton who can keep up with them.

Van der Poel will continue his demolition work at the Amstel Gold Race. For Pogacar, the hunt for new victories continues in Liège-Bastogne-Liège. There, a rare meeting between the two will take place. His race friend Van der Poel will be Pogacar’s biggest competitor on Sunday, April 21. On paper, it seems the Slovenian can hardly be beat, but you can bet that world champion MVDP will squeeze every bit of insane power from his legs to follow Pogacar in the Ardennes hills. May the best man win in Liège. It will be the last clash, for now, between the two men who we have in the past at times referred to as “aliens” on this website.

Unprecedented streak of bad luck for Vingegaard and Van Aert also offers new opportunities for Visma | Lease a Bike

The big victim of this spring is, of course, Visma | Lease a Bike. The Dutch team has faced an overwhelming amount of bad luck. Literally, everything is against them this year. Christophe Laporte, Dylan van Baarle, Tiesj Benoot, Jan Tratnik, Per Strand Hagenes and of course Wout van Aert. All have been taken out of the game for short or long periods of time. Add to this the misfortunes of Bart Lemmen and Wilco Kelderman. The serious crash suffered by Vingegaard, which confirmed that the team’s sorrows were not yet over, though they will have hoped otherwise. Given the severity of Vingegaard’s injuries, it seems unlikely that the reigning Tour winner can cycle himself into top form by the end of June. That would be an immense blow to this cycling season. Visma | Lease a Bike, the big challenger for Van der Poel in the one-day races and to Pogacar in the tours, is currently utterly toothless.

While everything went well in 2023, everything is going wrong in 2024. To such an extent that disappointment might well give way to resignation. Resignation to the fact that making history like in 2023 is not possible, but the disaster year can still provide a fertile ground for new opportunities. The unprecedented streak of bad luck already offered chances in Paris-Roubaix for the Van Dijke brothers. Following that, Olav Kooij might clinch several sprint victories in the Giro. Perhaps Cian Uijtdebroeks could excel in the Giro and achieve a notable classification. The men from the second tier are up. And without pressure, for 2024 will not be 2023. Visma | Lease a Bike must turn its bad luck into something beautiful during this interim year. The resilience shown in recent years’ races, for example in the Tour of 2021, demonstrates that the killer bees can do this like no other.

Road to Giro-Tour double is wide open for Pogacar

Out of the ‘big six’, only the two who are currently running at full steam remain. We can only look on with admiration as they devour everything in their way in 2024. It goes without saying that they each, to a large extent, stand alone in their respective races due to the absence or misfortune of their main competitors. The now pointless ‘what-if’ question about the presence of the other four is nonetheless interesting to consider. And yet, it seems unlikely that any of them could have challenged Pogacar and Van der Poel at this point. They seem to be steering straight towards their biggest (remaining) goals with the best-calculated and least risky program. In this respect, UAE Team Emirates in particular has learned its lesson well after Pogacar’s wrist fracture in 2023.

We should not be surprised if Pogacar becomes the first rider since 1998 to reel in the Giro-Tour double. The competition is no match for him in the Giro. If he gets into the pink jersey early on, then Pogi can already start saving some energy for the Tour. Once there, he will either face competitors in lesser form or opponents of lesser quality. Add to that his insanely strong and in-form team, and the grand tours will become a playground for the Slovenian. Van der Poel has already triumphed in his biggest goals of the season. He can take it easy in the early summer, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s during the Olympic Games in Paris.

All Van der Poel and Pogacar need to do, is stay on their bikes and continue their focused, concentrated and controlled course of action. If they do so, the good friends will be able to divide the bulk of all great 2024 cycling victories between the two of them.