The man who would be king
With 30km to go in the World Championships Road Race, after 225km of racing around the Imola circuit in Italy, a figure in pale yellow and blue shot out of the leading group. It was Tadej Pogačar, whose reign as Tour de France champion was only in its sixth day.
‘If he does this, he could dominate everything for the next 10 years,’ read one breathless comment on social media, perfectly capturing the thrilling, intoxicating possibility of the unknown.
It was understandable. Pogačar had done the seemingly impossible seven days earlier, turning a near one-minute deficit to Primož Roglič into a near one-minute advantage over the course of a 36.2km time-trial.
Pogačar was 21 then, turning 22 the day after the Tour finished. He was the youngest winner since 1904, the first debutant winner since Laurent Fignon in 1983 and the first winner from Slovenia. He did it without needing his team, and his strongest performance of the race – a bit like in his Grand Tour debut at the 2019 Vuelta a España – came on the penultimate day, suggesting exceptional powers of recovery.
Surely Pogačar was fuelled by a wave of belief in his own ability. He didn’t know what he couldn’t do so he could do anything
No one could be sure where his limits might lie, which is
