{"id":308207,"date":"2025-08-01T03:21:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-01T03:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/308207\/"},"modified":"2025-08-01T03:21:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-01T03:21:12","slug":"the-giro-was-far-better-than-the-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/308207\/","title":{"rendered":"The Giro was far better than the Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"


\nComparing this to the Giro d’Italia<\/a> from earlier in the year, Moser is in no doubt. Despite the lesser star power with Pogacar and Vingegaard absent, the actual fight for victory was a far more entertaining one as Yates, Del Toro, and Richard Carapaz<\/a> went toe-to-toe all the way to Rome. “I enjoyed the Giro d\u2019Italia much more because, in a Grand Tour, the GC battle has to be front and centre,” he explains. “If you\u2019re asking me, I\u2019ll always say that in a three-week race, I want to see a proper fight for the overall. So for me, the Giro was far better than the Tour, which simply didn\u2019t have that battle.”<\/p>\n

“I said it was one of the worst Tours in recent years, and I\u2019d say about 80% of people agreed with me,” Moser continues. “I got so many messages I still haven\u2019t read them all. Of course, some people disagreed. But let\u2019s be clear: I didn\u2019t say cycling is rubbish \u2014 I said this Tour didn\u2019t do it for me. It\u2019s like saying Nolan\u2019s latest film isn\u2019t as good as his previous one \u2014 that doesn\u2019t mean I hate cinema.”<\/p>\n

“I couldn\u2019t care less about saying everything\u2019s amazing just because it\u2019s expected. I\u2019d never listen to someone in my position who always has to say everything\u2019s wonderful. Because then, when something truly is wonderful, it loses its meaning,” the Italian adds. “I did enjoy many of the stages in this Tour \u2014 as day races \u2014 but beyond that? Not so much. And this isn\u2019t even a structural criticism of cycling \u2014 it\u2019s just that right now Pogacar is too strong for any real contest. That\u2019s not his fault, nor the fault of those chasing him. Even Team Visma | Lease a Bike were unfairly criticised.”<\/p>\n

And that last point isn’t something Moser agrees with as he defends Visma. “Everyone has their own view, but in my opinion, nothing would have changed even if Visma had raced differently. In the end, they did what they could,” he analyses. “They tried to wear him (Pogacar ed.) down \u2014 and they succeeded. It\u2019s just that in trying to crack him, they broke themselves too. I really respected that effort. And I got a lot of flak on social media for saying so. On the day of Mont Ventoux, I said, ‘For me, today\u2019s winner was Visma.’ Because the plan worked. If Pogacar had been having an off day, they would have dropped him. But he wasn\u2019t \u2014 in fact, he gained another two seconds. And then came the flood of insults.”<\/p>\n

\"TadejPogacar_JonasVingegaard\"\/<\/p>\n

Vingegaard couldn’t quite manage to crack Pogacar<\/p>\n

“If we look at the season as a whole, we\u2019re far better off with Pogacar in it”<\/p>\n

“People pointed out that Pogacar still set the fastest ascent time. Fine \u2014 but he spent the whole time on Vingegaard\u2019s wheel. To me, that record belongs to the Dane, in a sense. He didn\u2019t take a single turn in the wind. When he tried to attack, Jonas shut him down immediately,” Moser notes. “If a week earlier he\u2019d taken two minutes out of him and now couldn\u2019t shake him\u2026 something had changed. Who closed the gap? Did Vingegaard improve, or did Pogacar dip?”<\/p>\n

Ultimately though, Moser admits that as long as Pogacar shows up at the Tour de France, the racing is unlikely to change. “We\u2019ve got an athlete \u2014 Pogacar \u2014 who is better than everyone else (at least most of the time; think about the classics). But it hasn\u2019t always been this way. This kind of solo dominance is unprecedented in recent history. Trying to change things now might be pointless if, post-Pogacar, everything shifts again,” he concludes. “What I\u2019m saying is: drawing conclusions during an unstable era is risky. But let me be clear \u2014 I\u2019m firmly in the ‘better to have Pogacar than not’ camp. This Tour turned out the way it did, but if we look at the season as a whole, we\u2019re far better off with Pogacar in it.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Comparing this to the Giro d’Italia from earlier in the year, Moser is in no doubt. Despite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":308208,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-308207","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114951362131906216","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=308207"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308207\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/308208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}