the slovenians are coming! the slovenians are coming!

paris nice/tirreno adriatico 2023

ASO / Aurelien Vialatte

An oft-parroted take on Twitter (which is not real life) is that the era of Slovenian dominance in cycling ended in 2022. If that were really the case, this writer, dictionary in hand, does not know what else to call Primož Roglič and Tadej Pogačar each winning three stages and the overall prizes at Tirreno Adriatico and Paris Nice, respectively, other than dominance.

I will admit that last year, after Pogačar’s loss to Jonas Vingegaard in the Tour de France and Roglič’s bizarre Vuelta a España exit, it seemed that the pundits were truly and irrevocably correct. However, one of the beautiful things about all sports is that the off-season provides a break in continuity during which the stage and its players are reset. Aside from hints gleamed by some stiff training camp interviews, what happens within the minds and bodies of these athletes during this hiatus is ultimately unknowable. They disappear and re-emerge, nurse their wounds and get in shape and then the whole circus starts all over again. And boy, has it started.

Paris Nice and Tirreno Adriatico are two races that set narratives for the entire season. We will be talking about these two exhibitions — and that is what Roglič and Pogačar pulled off — in every stage race that follows. Now, it must always be acknowledged up front that a race is never just about winners and losers. Note, for example, the quiet return of dynamic players we’d sort of forgotten about, such as Tao Geoghagen Hart (3rd in Tirreno Adriatico) and Gino Mäder (5th in Paris Nice). Or perhaps the remarkably strong second place GC showings from João Almeida and David Gaudu, riders whose real ascendence into the highest ranks of cycling is made clearer and clearer every year. These races also provide the opportunity for up and coming pros to demonstrate their worth. For example, in Paris Nice, a race in which Pogačar sweeped three jerseys, he was denied the King of the Mountains by a young Dane from UNO-X, Jonas Gregaard. Gregaard took the jersey on Stage 2 in Fontainebleau after 110 kilometers in the breakaway — a repeat performance after spending 122 kilometers ahead of the race the day before. No small feat.

But at the end of the day — and no one would argue otherwise — the two races belonged to the Slovenians.

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There is a bit from The Book of Bodies by the Slovenian poet Aleš Šteger I am reminded of this time of year, when the brown scars of winter are exchanged for the beginning of spring: “Nature knows that the color of pain is green.” So it was for Jonas Vingegaard.

Earlier this year, the Dane from Jumbo Visma had laid waste to O Gran Camiño, winning every single stage — a direct retort to his rival Pogačar’s similarly stellar performance in Ruta del Sol. Yet for Vingegaard, in the final three kilometers of Stage 4 of Paris Nice, amid the beastly hairpins of Le Loge des Gardes, something went wrong.