Cavendish out, Pidcock in and Pog v Rog – Tour de France talking points

The 109th Tour de France will begin with a short time trial on the streets of Copenhagen on Friday.

The 13 kilometres around the Danish capital are the first of the 3,328 that separate the peloton from the final finish line in Paris on July 24.

Here the PA news agency takes a look at the key talking points around this year’s race.

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A lot has happened in the world since 2019, and Egan Bernal’s victory in that summer’s Tour certainly seems a long, long time ago. Tadej Pogacar has won two Tours since then and such has been his dominance in stage racing since it already seems the natural order of things. The only man who has been able to challenge him has been fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic, who had seemed so in control of the 2020 Tour until the time trial on the penultimate day. The two start as odds-on favourite and most likely challenger. A case can be made for the likes of Geraint Thomas, Dani Martinez, and Aleksandr Vlasov but can any of them genuinely challenge unless the top two run into trouble?

The most obvious factor that could upend this Tour is the rise of Covid-19 cases across the continent once again. The Tour de Suisse, a key warm-up race, was badly hit as almost 30 riders withdrew either because they had contracted the virus, been deemed a close contact, or because their teams pulled out en masse due to cases within their camp. Already QuickStep-Alpha Vinyl have been forced into a change with key domestique Tim Declerq having tested positive just a few days before the Tour, and there is a real fear there will be more cases in the coming days. The UCI has tightened its Covid regulations in response, but will it be enough to keep the peloton safe?

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