Pog, Rog and the rest - a 2021 Grand Tour review and case for Road Cycling

Cycling is a delightful sport, able to highlight the beauty of our natural surroundings, whilst also enabling us to take pleasure in the intense, unparalleled suffering of our favourite athletes. Nominally a team sport, it carries hundreds of individual stories each encased within a race, and dozens of different narratives and micro competitions that can intrigue and amaze. I'm therefore being flippant with the title of this article, though it also isn't wrong. For whilst 2021 was the year that Tadej Pogacar and Primoz Roglic reinforced Slovenia's sporting superiority in three week races, it was also a year of redemption, reinvention and glory for those whose recent records have been hampered by illness, injury or the mundanities of domestique duty.

It is a pity that we never witnessed Roglic and Pogacar going head to head at the greatest race of them all, with crashes and abandons depriving Pogacar of his two fiercest rivals in Roglic and Geraint Thomas, a man whose recent record at Grand Tours will likely result in demotion to super-domestique if he chooses to remain at Ineos. Whilst Pogacar's final winning margin was comfortable over Jonas Vingegaard, it presents a misleading picture of a fascinating race. Not least the first week, which the esteemed Daniel Friebe said after the reigning champion's mesmerising attack on stage 8 could be declared 'the greatest one-week stage race in history'. The departure of Mathieu Van Der Poel left a new narrative behind. The new kid on the block, rode with his most esteemed family member (Raymond Poulidor) watching from above, as he attacked twice from the bunch to claim the yellow jersey, making a piece of history The Eternal Second never could. 

One piece of history consigned to record as early as 6 months ago, would have been Eddy Merckx's stage record, an unparalleled 34 wins in Le Tour, a Cannibal who could seemingly not be conquered. Not least by Mark Cavendish, a man who had battled Epstein-Barr, injuries and strained managerial relations for much of the last 4 years. His return appeared symbolic, a last hurrah for a man drafted in to replace the injured reigning Points Classification winner Sam Bennett. But at the first opportunity, Cavendish proved to the world that he was not to be forgotten, the commentary from Ned Boulting to 'Stop the clock! Turn back time!' telling us that 'History is not in charge here, Mark Cavendish is!' created seconds which will last eternally in people's hearts and minds across the country. 

Only Van Der Poel's long-term rival Wout Van Aert went on to deprive Cavendish of taking Merckx's record outright on the Champs-Elysses, a reminder of the entire generation of sprinters that sit between the newly rearmed Manx Missile and his current contemporaries. Not winning the record outright does notionally incentivise another romantic return to the Tour next year for Cavendish , though he will have stiff competition from within his own team as well as a fit Caleb Ewan and Dylan Gronewegen. 

For all the wonder of Le Tour, the shafted ambitions of many riders at the race, gives La Vuelta the moniker of a Redemption Tour, the race where teams and riders make amends for their sub-optimal performances earlier in the year. So it was then, that Rog headed to Spain for yet another pilgrimage of his own kind, to test his own enduring faith in himself. To this end, it at times felt as though he was only racing against himself. Or occasionally Magnus Cort, the rejuvenated Dane whose combativity prize at La Vuelta was thoroughly deserved, even if he never posed a General Classification threat.

Movistar, the de facto Spanish National team took their strongest possible riders, meaning a recycling of riders from the Tour, including the ever microscopically-improving Enric Mas, and Alejandro Valverde, a 41 year old whose recent racing schedule suggests a failure on Movistar's part to properly integrate younger riders into the team roster, with the team using only 17 riders for all three Grand Tours. That they secured a stage win from Miguel Angel Lopez and second place courtesy of Mas was catastrophically undermined by Lopez quitting the race in a fit of despair on the penultimate stage, reinforcing the rift the team is believed to have between its European and South American riders, first exposed several seasons ago with Nairo Quintana. Lopez has since apologised for his actions, depriving the team of two riders in the top 5 of their 'home' race.

For Ineos, the Grand Tours could best be described as 'mixed'. Egan Bernal's success at the Giro appeared a defining moment for the team, and heading into the Tour de France with victories in the Tour de Suisse, Criterium de Dauphine, Volta ao Catalunya, and the Tour de Romandie, the team seemed imperious. But Thomas' crash left Richard Carapaz their only leader, with neither Richie Porte or Tao Geoghegan Hart able to recapture their best form. Carapaz went on to finish third overall, a good result personally, but  for a team which won every edition bar one from 2012-2019, to be over 7 minutes behind the race lead was no doubt frustrating. Carapaz went on to win an excellent Gold in the Olympic Road race before supporting Bernal and Adam Yates in La Vuelta. But the Ecuadorean was fatigued and eventually withdrew, whilst Bernal, suffering the effects of long Covid, appeared resigned to long audacious attacks to tear the race apart. It succeeded in some respects, but failed to move him within the podium, Yates overtaking him on the penultimate stage en route to fourth overall. Bernal meanwhile lost the Young Riders Classification to Bahrain super-domestique Gino Mader.

Mader found himself high on GC by virtue of his work for Jack Haig, an Aussie former road captain who left BikeExchange to pursue his own ambitions. After crashing out in that frantic first week of Le Tour, Haig too redeemed himself in Spain, finishing third overall ahead of past Grand Tour winners. Similar verdicts could also be applied to Damiano Caruso this year. After over a decade working in support of others, injuries at this year's Giro d'Italia gave the 33 year-old a shot at glory in his home race. The images of him patting his teammate Pello Bilbao on the back after he had emptied himself for his leader attracted attention beyond cycling. A man who could truly empathise and respect the pain and suffering that goes into sacrificing personal ambition for the work of others, Caruso was a popular stage winner and runner-up overall to Bernal this year.

It is these personal stories of endeavour which are part of what makes the sport so compelling. Bernal is a man who rose from the mountains of Colombia, by winning a scholarship from a race his father wouldn't allow him to enter. Roglic, who worked as a cleaner at a shopping centre whilst still an amateur,  found himself drifting between ski jumping and studying for a degree, before turning professional, not riding his first Grand Tour until the age of 26. When watching Roglic rebound repeatedly from crash, injury and final stage drama, it can be a source of inspiration far beyond his friends in the peloton. That said, Bernal's recovery from long-Covid and Sclerosis can perhaps take encouragement from Roglic's repeated battles from adversity, each comeback greater than the last, his recent Vuelta victory bringing his biggest margin of victory yet, and coming after an Olympic Gold in the Time Trial.

Though for these impressive mountains that have been conquered by these riders, a final word should go to Dan Martin. The Brummie Irishman is this week riding the Tour of Britain after announcing his intention to attack from the peloton into the sunset at the end of the season. Throughout his career, Martin was a constant threat at Grand Tours, collecting top 10 finishes and stage wins in each, even being awarded the Combativity Prize in the 2018 Tour de France. This was once again on show this year at the Giro, where despite losing over 6 minutes on stage 12's 'Strade Bianchi ' stage, he battled back for 10th overall and securing a mightily impressive victory the following week. Attacking at the bottom of a 12 kilometre summit finish with only a 90 second lead over a chasing peloton, Martin held on for victory, a feat which few other riders would have been able to achieve after spending hours in the breakaway beforehand. 

One of the reasons to love cycling is to watch riders like Dan Martin. Riders who seek to excite the race, pushing themselves to their physical limit, often without the support of teammates. These stunning individual efforts, often among stunning backdrops foster an aesthetic to cycling of the riders' love and natural peace with the suffering they endure, harking back perhaps to the origins of professional bike racing, and the nostalgia that evokes. That this aesthetic has been so easily disregarded following the events and actions of the 'Lance' era, in favour of a macho image of doped up robots, full of denial and spite for their predicament, shows the image professional cycling still has to redeem. To have only been gripped by the sport amidst the sporting hype of 2012, I am immensely grateful for that coincidence of timing, yet I am also confident that with each major race, the new stories and efforts witnessed continue to improve and change hearts and minds for the better. After all, history is not in charge here.