If I were to ask you whether you were more inclined towards fatalism or indeterminism as a philosophical life view, you might wonder whether someone has messed up in commissioning a sports column. Bear with me.
The former is the belief that all of life is predestined, and the latter that events are not all causally determined, allowing for randomness and spontaneity.
Sorry if I’m being patronising but I had to Google it. See, I would argue the very practice of sports fandom predisposes a need for indeterminism; the belief, nay certain knowledge, that anything and everything can happen at any given moment, turning the fate and fortune of a game or race around.
Yet, so many of us behave as though we were committed fatalists as soon as the proverbial finger in the sporting air detects a breeze. Nowhere is this more obvious than at the Tour de France.
Three-time Tour winner Tadej Pogacar is currently leading the race once again, on his rampaging mission to become the first rider to claim four titles since Chris Froome in 2017.
Already, many observers have practically presented the Slovenian with the yellow jersey to keep. He’s too strong, no one can beat him, the race is done and dusted.
Now, I’m going to caveat everything I wrote above and all that you will read below by saying I believe Tadej to be the most complete, most comprehensive, most bestest rider in history. Yes, we’ve run out of superlatives and yes, I have heard of Eddy Merckx.
He is the odds-on favourite to win this Tour having barely put a foot wrong in the last two years and having won the last two Grand Tours he started. But every year at the Tour de France, and I mean EVERY year, we shut down the general classification conversation in week one, declaring the inevitable winner and mocking those who have watched enough bike racing to know that the Tour makes fools of us all.
We came into this race declaring it to be a two-horse race between the world champion Tadej, and the two-time Tour winner Jonas Vingegaard. Jonas came into last year’s race having barely recovered from a horror crash that left him with two punctured lungs, multiple broken bones and a fear for his life. Finishing second overall and winning a stage was a staggering comeback.
This year, we were told he was at his best ever: cue the showdown music. Except someone snuck into the DJ booth after his sub-par time-trial performance on stage five where he lost one minute and five seconds to his arch-nemesis Pogacar, turned the lights up and told us all to go home. Party’s over, time to sweep up the confetti, it’s all done. Well apologies to the maintenance team, but I’m not going anywhere.
We only have to cast our minds back a few weeks to find a different rider in a different race who is a valid comparison.
Vingegaard’s team-mate, Simon Yates, was condemned to content himself with finishing third at the Giro d’Italia until he wrestled the race into submission on the Colle delle Finestre on the penultimate stage. The Englishman won the whole thing by almost four minutes, denying Tadej’s team-mate Isaac del Toro victory.
It is too obvious to dismiss any comparisons between Tadej and Del Toro, so I won’t even begin. Tadej belongs in a stratosphere of his own. But my point is all the very best are unbeatable, until they are not.
Tadej has been the best rider of this Tour so far, no doubt, but we’ve only had six stages. Tadej himself knows how crucial each of the 21 days of racing are, having taken his first title at the final gasp on stage 20 in 2020.
The high mountains still await, loaded as they are in the second half of the race. This is not only Jonas’ favoured terrain but it is where the Tour is always won and lost.
During my brief research for this column, I wasn’t able to find any specific motto or saying to reflect the principles of indeterminism, so allow me to gift the philosophy of one of cycling’s favourite cliches. We all know cliches are such for a reason. So in indeterminism philosophy, as in bike racing, it’s best to remember that anything can happen, and the chances are it most probably will.
Orla is presenting coverage of this year’s Tour de France for TNT Sports and Discovery
