Tour de France can only be a Primoz Roglic v Tadej Pogacar showdown, Ineos in deep trouble – Blazin’ Saddles

Two hard-fought stage races over the same time period amounted to manna in the musette for cycling fans, although the final results – a commanding victory for Tadej Pogacar and a slender breakthrough win for Primoz Roglic – will have many fearing for the inevitable later this summer. Here are 10 talking points from an absorbing week of racing both sides of the French and Italian border… Ad/> Anything UAE can do, Jumbo-Visma can do better Paris — NiceRoglic wins Paris-Nice despite familiar late wobble as brilliant Yates deniedYESTERDAY AT 16:10 When UAE Team Emirates channelled their inner Gewiss and pulled off an uncanny one-two-three in the Trofeo Laigueglia at the start of the month, no one expected their clean sweep to be replicated just days later and on a far greater stage – and by their big rivals, no less.

With less than seven kilometres remaining of the opening stage of Paris-Nice, Jumbo-Visma looked to apply the pressure on the final climb of the day, the short but sharp Cote de Breuil-Bois-Robert. On any usual day, this was a climb which would have perhaps separated the wheat from the chaff ahead of a reduced bunch sprint.

But Roglic’s team had other ideas. It was new arrival Christophe Laporte who turned the screw with a long, unseated surge which blew the pack apart.

Soon, the reborn Frenchman only had team-mates Roglic and Wout van Aert on his wheel, plus a grimacing Zdenek Stybar. Once the sole representative from Quick-Step Alpha Vinyl was jettisoned (and with it any chances of a Fabio Jakobsen win) the Jumbo-Visma trio rode off into the sunset.