The performance may have exceeded any ever produced in the mountains of the Tour de France, but the aftermath was familiar. At this race, stories have a habit of repeating themselves through the eras as though they had never happened before.
When Tadej Pogačar produced a display for the ages at Plateau de Beille on Sunday afternoon, breaking the late Marco Pantani's record for the ascent by an estimated 3:40, he was always likely to face a familiar question in his rest day press conference: how could he explain it?
