It is rare for any cyclist to win the Tour de France twice, which is why it marks the point where a rider is truly established as one of the biggest names of the great race. A third Tour win is different again, however: only the very greatest have managed the feat. That is why the next four weeks hold such significance for Tadej Pogacar.
Win that third Tour and “Pog” will be elevated to a select pantheon. The five-times winners – Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Induráin – are well known, while the disgraced former seven-times winner Lance Armstrong is simply notorious. But Phillipe Thys (1913, 1914, 1920), Louison Bobet (1953-55), Greg LeMond (1986, 1989, 1990), and the four-times winner Chris Froome (2013, 2015-17) form the minute “band of three”.
