Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel will make 2024 Tour de France most exciting in years - Voigt
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Updated 21/09/2023 at 14:51 GMT
The 2024 Tour de France could see a general classification battle between Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel. Eurosport expert Jens Voigt is excited by the prospect and thinks it could make the race "more exciting than it has been for a long time". Voigt also reflected on Jumbo-Visma's dominance this year and explained why he doesn't think it will continue into 2024.
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Jens Voigt is predicting a “cycling festival” at next year’s Tour de France as “three absolute super talents” – Tadej Pogacar, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel – lock horns.
Pogacar (UAE Team Emirates) and Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) have won the last four editions of the Tour de France between them.
Evenepoel (Soudal Quick-Step) won the 2022 Vuelta a Espana and even though he failed to defend his title this year, he showed his quality with some impressive stage wins.
The Belgian looks set for a Tour debut in 2024 and Eurosport expert Voigt is excited to see him clash with Pogacar and Vingegaard.
“The Tour will be more exciting than it has been for a long time because three absolute super talents - assuming that Vingegaard rides again - will meet for the first time in full possession of their strength and with the absolute will to win,” Voigt told
“Everyone is young, everyone is hungry, and everyone has already won major tours.
“It's going to be a cycling festival that we haven't seen before: it's going to be great.”
Jumbo-Visma dominated the Grand Tours in 2023, claiming victory in all three of them.
The latest one, the Vuelta a Espana, saw Jumbo-Visma lock out the podium with Sepp Kuss, Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic taking the top three spots.
But Voigt does not expect Jumbo-Visma to have it all their own way in 2024.
“I don't think that's a danger. Of course it was always a good team and this year they were more dominant than ever, but we have a similarly strong Tadej Pogacar, who has also won many races this season.
"If he rides, in quotes, ‘poorly’, he will still finish second in the Tour. And that is a weak result for him.
“I think that Jumbo were only so overwhelmingly superior this year and that will change next season. Jumbo's dominance will no longer be as strong or visible.
“I don't expect us to see years like Team Sky again, where a team starts from the front and crushes everything like they did back then with Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome. I think the other teams are all capable of catching up.”
Asked what makes him think that other teams will catch up to Jumbo-Visma, Voigt said: “Competitors like Enric Mas, Juan Ayuso, but also Bahrain Victorious will analyse how they can improve.
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“Of course they are also frustrated that they were actually second class at the Vuelta compared to Jumbo. It really was like that, even if it sounds harsh.
“Kuss, Vingegaard and Roglic are in first, second and third place and everyone behind them is three or four minutes behind. There was a huge gap there. Nobody can be satisfied with that.”
One of the questions in coming months for Jumbo-Visma will be how they attack the 2024 season.
Will Kuss get a chance to lead the team at a Grand Tour? Could Roglic ride the Tour for the first time? And where will Vingegaard compete?
“The only thing missing from Roglic's CV is winning the Tour de France,” said Voigt.
“As strong as he was in the Giro and the Vuelta, he may say to himself ‘maybe I'll attack again next year’. But Vingegaard probably wants to win again. Wout Van Aert is also an alpha male.
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“You have to make them all happy first. Maybe Vingegaard and Roglic will also swap roles. But these are luxury problems.
“The question is: what quality does Jumbo-Visma have to have in 2024 in order to repeat the year or make it better again?
“Do they say, ‘that's all we want’, or do they say, ‘we want to win all three Tours and the Olympics and the World Championships?'
“This is a serious problem for them as a team: ‘Where do we want to go now?’
“There will be a lot of discussion to set a direction and answer the question of what goals the team is setting for itself in the coming year.”
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