Double Difficulty

No first-time Tour winner has successfully defended their title since Miguel Indurain in 1992. Peter Cossins looks at why a Tour title defence is so difficult and weighs up whether Geraint Thomas can buck the trend

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Given the influence of innumerable factors on sporting outcomes, statistics can say a lot and nothing at the same time. Take the fact, for instance, that no first-time winner of the Tour de France has managed to defend the title since Miguel Indurain claimed his second consecutive success in 1992. Over the subsequent period, doping suspensions, illness, crashes, and, in the case of Alberto Contador’s Astana in 2008, non-selection for the race have meant that not a single yellow jersey champion has repeated Indurain’s feat

Does this mean that the odds are, consequently, stacked against Geraint Thomas retaining the Tour crown? While the simple answer is no, it does appear that defending the Tour title is a different challenge to winning it in the first place, and in some ways even more complicated.

As former head of British Cycling’s hugely successful Olympic track programme and the manager of three different Tour de France champions, Sir Dave Brailsford is particularly aware of how athletes can be affected.

“If you’ve worked all of your life to achieve something, when you achieve it there is a period when you have to adjust to it, and that adjustment period is right at the time when you’re trying to create the basis of your next season,” he explains.

“I guess there’s a question of how much the tail end of that adjustment period has on the start of your preparation for the following season. I think that’s where the answer lies to the question of why it’s so difficult to defend the Tour title after you win it for the first time.”