Tadej Pogacar seeks century as Tour de France returns to its roots

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Slovenian rider Tadej Pogacar starts as red-hot favourite with fans and bookmakers alike.

PHOTO: AFP

PARIS – The Tour de France embarks on July 5 with superstar Tadej Pogacar’s hunger for wins sharing top billing with the magnificent 3,338-kilometre route in the first edition since 2020 not to venture abroad.

After starts in Florence, Bilbao and Copenhagen, cycling’s most prestigious race returns to its roots with an old school itinerary favouring climbers.

“We decided to bring the Tour home, it was high time after all the foreign starts,” said race director Christian Prudhomme.

Every inch of this year’s 21-day course is on French soil, for the first time since the pandemic-delayed edition, with most of the country placed on a heatwave alert in the week leading up to the race.

Temperatures in the south of France topped 40 degrees Celsius last weekend, with large swathes of the country bracing for similar conditions in the coming days.

The heatwave is expected to subside by the end of the week, but riders will still be tested to their limits over the peaks and plains of France lauded in cycling folklore as “the world’s most beautiful stadium”.

“Great settings for great heroes,” said Prudhomme, a former TV executive who has transformed the race into a global extravaganza broadcast in 190 countries.

For 21 days this July, the daily doings of this most arduous of sporting struggles provides the drumbeat of summer, with armchair tourists and cycling fanatics alike tuning in around the world.

Team UAE’s Pogacar starts as red-hot favourite with fans and bookmakers alike,