CALAIS (FRANCE) – Five-time Tour de France winner Bernard Hinault believes defending champion Tadej Pogacar will be difficult, but not impossible to beat.
Hinault won the Tour in 1978, 1979, 1981, 1982 and 1985, and told AFP in an interview in Dunkirk on Tuesday that Pogacar is a very strong favourite indeed.
Twenty kilometres of cobbles on Wednesday is the Tour’s first real challenge, and the last Frenchman to win the Tour de France insists Pogacar will have no problems there despite his slender frame.
“It could be the start of the real Tour de France, quite simply because you can have falls, punctures, all kinds of race incidents meaning the Tour could be lost or won here,”…
