The Ringer, as a media concern, is known for many things: feature writing, TV criticism, polarizing food takes, occasionally waylaying passing pleasure yachts and press ganging their passengers to crew our pirate galleons. The usual.
But among our most celebrated functions is as a clearinghouse for basketball takes. And few current NBA players, if any, are as celebrated as Luka Doncic. Doncic, to the uninitiated, is a cherubic 21-year-old Slovenian guard for the Dallas Mavericks. He won NBA Rookie of the Year in the 2018-19 season and very nearly averaged a triple-double in 2019-20. Doncic is an undeniably exciting player, a willing outside shooter and audacious passer who’s not only capable of putting up 43 points, 17 rebounds, and 13 assists in a playoff game—which he actually did against the Clippers last month—but doing so with a panache and joie de vivre that recalls Meadowlark Lemon pulling down an opponent’s pants.
The Ringer so admires the young Dallas star that our in-house music composition arm, Ice2Ice, even created an anthem in his honor: the chart-topping 2018 crossover hit, “Halleluka.”
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But what if I told you … [pulls sunglasses down bridge of nose] … that Luka Doncic is not the best male 21-year-old Slovenian athlete going right now? That the true breakout hero of Slovenia is a man about half Doncic’s size, who is currently making his way up a remote Alpine road on a bicycle?
Friends, this is Tadej Pogacar, the Luka Doncic of cycling.
Pogacar has been an up-and-coming name on the cycling circuit for a few years now. In 2018, as a teenager competing in cycling’s second division, Pogacar won the Tour de l’Avenir, the de facto junior Tour de France. A year later, he debuted on the UCI World Tour, the highest level of men’s road cycling, with Team UAE Emirates. In May, he took a general classification win at the Tour of California, then in September followed it up by winning three stages at the Vuelta a Espana and finishing third. In doing so, Pogacar became one of the 10 youngest podium finishers in the century-long history of grand tour racing.
This is not merely a path to superstardom, it’s the path to superstardom. In 2017, a 20-year-old Colombian named Egan Bernal won the Tour de l’Avenir. The following summer, he won the Tour of California and impressed in his debut grand tour appearance, in which he helped teammate Geraint Thomas to overall victory. And in 2019, Bernal won La Grande Boucle itself, sneaking past Thomas and wearing the yellow jersey into Paris.
Pogacar could very well do the same this year. With four competitive stages left in the Tour, Pogacar sits in second place, 40 seconds behind race favorite and fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic in the general classification. On Stage 9, Pogacar made it through a rolling, mountainous course with the leaders, then out-sprinted Bernal, Roglic, and rising Swiss star Marc Hirschi to become the youngest Tour de France stage winner since Lance Armstrong in 1993. On Stage 15, a climb up the Col du Grand Colombier, Pogacar likewise burst out to beat Roglic to the summit.
These attacks are characteristic of Pogacar, and part of what makes him such an exciting rider to watch. Where Bernal is at his best grinding opponents to dust over long climbs, leaving a trail of gasping, defeated men in his wake, Pogacar is a slightly bigger, more powerful rider. (Only in the warped world of cycling is 5-foot-9 and 146 pounds considered “bigger.”) Grand tour contenders usually try to weigh as little as possible, as 10 extra pounds of muscle might as well be 10 pounds of sand when pedaling up a mile in vertical elevation. But Pogacar is not only able to hold serve against the best climbers in the world, he can out-drag his rivals to the line in a sprint and produce an explosive attack off the front of the group with miles left to go.
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This year’s Tour will likely be decided between Wednesday’s climb to the Col de la Loze, the highest summit in the race, and Saturday’s individual time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles, the climb on which four-time Tour winner Chris Froome announced himself as a grand tour contender in 2012. And unlike last year’s race, which was one of the most chaotic of the 21st century, this is pretty much a two-man competition now.
Bernal’s team, Ineos Grenadiers, has in some form or other won seven of the past eight Tours de France, but has all but no-showed in 2020. Bernal himself lost seven minutes to the Slovenians on Stage 15, knocking him out of contention just as the race was heating up. Third-place Rigoberto Uran, riding for American team EF Pro Cycling, has finished second in three grand tours and is a good enough time trialist to hold his own in Stage 20, but can’t keep up with Pogacar and Roglic at their best in the mountains. With the possible exception of sixth-place Richie Porte, who stayed with the Slovenians on the Grand Colombier and is racing his best Tour in years, everyone else is too far behind or not good enough against the clock to threaten Pogacar and Roglic.
The way Pogacar is riding right now, it would take an absolutely imperious opponent to hold him off. But that’s precisely what Roglic represents. Roglic, a 30-year-old former world junior ski jump champion, is distinguished from his competitors by his goatee, tattoos, and impenetrable poker face. With his win on Stage 4, Roglic has now won at least one stage in every grand tour he’s entered—a combination of time trial wins, daring solo breakaways, and hair-raising descents. It was Roglic who beat Pogacar to overall victory in last year’s Vuelta.
Roglic is the best all-around rider in the world, one of the best time trialists in the peloton, and an excellent sprinter for a grand tour contender. Even with Bernal in the peloton, Roglic entered this year’s Tour as the heavy favorite, backed by one of the best supporting casts ever assembled.
Every dominant Tour de France team of the past 25 years has operated what’s known as a “train.” One dominant leader is surrounded by a multitude of support riders who sit at the front of the peloton and drive the bunch at such a fast pace that it’s incredibly difficult for individuals to gain time on an attack. That’s how Lance Armstrong won his seven Tour titles, and Ineos Grenadiers won their seven titles in eight years.
Roglic’s Jumbo-Visma teammates, working in concert, are just as impressive as their leader. Veteran road captain Tony Martin, former Giro d’Italia winner Tom Dumoulin, and former Tour of California champions George Bennett and Robert Gesink were all household names in the cycling world before this season, and Jumbo-Visma also has two of this season’s breakout stars.
Former cyclocross ace Wout van Aert won the prestigious Italian one-day races Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo last month, and in between pulling Roglic across hilly terrain, he’s found time to win two sprint stages for himself in this year’s Tour. And Roglic’s closest helper on tough climbs is 26-year-old American Sepp Kuss, who’s emerged as one of the most explosive climbers on the planet. Last year, while helping Roglic to victory in the Vuelta, he took off to win a stage on his own and slowed down to high-five spectators on the way to the finish.
Roglic has not yet been dropped on a climb at this year’s tour, but that’s not to say he hasn’t been attacked. The only problem for his opponents is that at least one of Kuss or Dumoulin has hung around to the end of every climb, which means that if Pogacar (or Uran or Lopez or former yellow jersey wearer Adam Yates) attacks, Roglic can have a teammate pace him back to the head of the race without expending much energy at all.
Pogacar, by contrast, has climbed up to second place in the race with very little help from his team. UAE Team Emirates was set up for a dual-leader strategy with Pogacar and Fabio Aru, a former Vuelta winner who’s battled illness in recent years and abandoned this year’s race on Stage 9. Jumbo-Visma’s train strategy is designed to isolate the other contenders, and sure enough, by the time van Aert hands off to Dumoulin or Bennett, Pogacar is usually alone—but he’s always been able to hang on.
Based on the events of the past two weeks, the race will be decided on the Stage 20 time trial, which includes 30 kilometers of flat-to-rolling terrain at the start, followed by a six-kilometer stretch that goes up 500 meters in elevation. On a flat course, Roglic would usually be the heavy favorite, but this year’s Slovenian national time trial championship featured similar terrain, and Pogacar beat Roglic by nine seconds on a course less than half as long as the Tour de France time trial. If Pogacar keeps the gap where it is until Saturday, he’ll have a chance to pull off a huge upset.
Not just a huge upset, but the biggest sporting achievement by any young Slovenian this year. Surely that’d be an occasion worthy of celebrating in song.
GUADALAJARA, Mexico – Canada’s Marina Stakusic fell 6-4, 6-3 to Poland’s Magdalena Frech in the quarterfinals of the Guadalajara Open tennis tournament on Friday.
The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont., won 61 per cent of her first-serve points and broke on just one of her six opportunities.
Stakusic had upset top-seeded Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (0) on Thursday night to advance.
In the opening round, Stakusic defeated Slovakia’s Anna Karolína Schmiedlová 6-2, 6-4 on Tuesday.
The fifth-seeded Frech won 62 per cent of her first-serve points and converted on three of her nine break point opportunities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
TORONTO – Alejandro Kirk’s long single with the bases loaded provided the Toronto Blue Jays with a walk-off 4-3 win in the 11th inning of their series opener against the St. Louis Cardinals on Friday.
With the Cardinals outfield in, Kirk drove a shot off the base of the left-field wall to give the Blue Jays (70-78) their fourth win in 11 outings and halt the Cardinals’ (74-73) two-game win streak before 30,380 at Rogers Centre.
Kirk enjoyed a two-hit, two-RBI outing.
Erik Swanson (2-2) pitched a perfect 11th inning for the win, while Cardinals reliever Ryan Fernandez (1-5) took the loss.
Blue Jays starter Kevin Gausman enjoyed a seven-inning, 104-pitch outing. He surrendered his two runs on nine hits and two walks and fanned only two Cardinals.
He gave way to reliever Genesis Cabrera, who gave up a one-out homer to Thomas Saggese, his first in 2024, that tied the game in the eighth.
The Cardinals started swiftly with four straight singles to open the game. But they exited the first inning with only two runs on an RBI single to centre from Nolan Arendao and a fielder’s choice from Saggese.
Gausman required 28 pitches to escape the first inning but settled down to allow his teammates to snatch the lead in the fourth.
He also deftly pitched out of threats from the visitors in the fifth, sixth and seventh thanks to some solid defence, including Will Wagner’s diving stop, which led to a double play to end the fifth inning.
George Springer led off with a walk and stole second base. He advanced to third on Nathan Lukes’s single and scored when Vladimir Guerrero Jr. knocked in his 95th run with a double off the left-field wall.
Lukes scored on a sacrifice fly to left field from Spencer Horwitz. Guerrero touched home on Kirk’s two-out single to right.
In the ninth, Guerrero made a critical diving catch on an Arenado grounder to throw out the Cardinals’ infielder, with reliever Tommy Nance covering first. The defensive gem ended the inning with a runner on second base.
St. Louis starter Erick Fedde faced the minimum night batters in the first three innings thanks to a pair of double plays. He lasted five innings, giving up three runs on six hits and a walk with three strikeouts.
ON DECK
Toronto ace Jose Berrios (15-9) will start the second of the three-game series on Saturday. He has a six-game win streak.
The Cardinals will counter with righty Kyle Gibson (8-6).
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
CALGARY – Mired in their first four-game losing skid in 20 years, the Calgary Stampeders are going back to Jake Maier at quarterback on Saturday after he was benched for a game.
It won’t be an easy assignment.
Visiting McMahon Stadium are the Eastern Conference-leading Montreal Alouettes (10-2) who own the CFL’s best record. The Stampeders (4-8) have fallen to last in the Western Conference.
“Six games is plenty of time, but also it is just six games,” said Maier. “We’ve got to be able to get on the right track.”
Calgary is in danger of missing the playoffs for the first time since 2004.
“I do still believe in this team,” said Stampeders’ head coach and general manager Dave Dickenson. “I want to see improvement, though. I want to see guys on a weekly basis elevating their game, and we haven’t been doing that.”
Maier is one of the guys under the microscope. Two weeks ago, the second-year starter threw four interceptions in a 35-20 home loss to the Edmonton Elks.
After his replacement, rookie Logan Bonner, threw five picks in last week’s 37-16 loss to the Elks in Edmonton, the football is back in Maier’s hands.
“Any time you fail or something doesn’t go your way in life, does it stink in the moment? Yeah. But then the days go on and you learn things about yourself and you learn how to prepare a little bit better,” said Maier. “It makes you mentally tougher.”
Dickenson wants to see his quarterback making better decisions with the football.
“Things are going to happen, interceptions will happen, but try to take calculated risks, rather than just putting the ball up there and hoping that we catch it,” said Dickenson.
A former quarterback himself, he knows the importance of that vital position.
“You cannot win without good quarterback play,” Dickenson said. “You’ve got to be able to make some plays — off-schedule plays, move-around plays, plays that break down, plays that aren’t designed perfectly, but somehow you found the right guy, and then those big throws where you’re taking that hit.”
But it’s going to take a team effort, and that includes the club’s receiving corp.
“We always have to band together because we need everything to go right for our receivers to get the ball,” said Nik Lewis, the Stampeders’ receivers coach. “The running back has to pick up the blitz, the o-line has to block, the quarterback has to make the right reads, and then give us a catchable ball.”
Lewis brings a unique perspective to this season’s frustrations as he was a 22-year-old rookie in Calgary in 2004 when the Stamps went 4-14 under coach Matt Dunigan. They turned it around the next season and haven’t missed the playoffs since.”
“Thinking back and just looking at it, there’s just got to be an ultimate belief that you can get it done. Look at Montreal, they were 6-7 last year and they’ve gone 18-2 since then,” said Lewis.
Montreal is also looking to rebound from a 37-23 loss to the B.C. Lions last week. But for head coach Jason Maas, he says his team’s mindset doesn’t change, regardless of what happened the previous week.
“Last year when we went through a four-game losing streak, you couldn’t tell if we were on a four-game winning streak or a four-game losing streak by the way the guys were in the building, the way we prepared, the type of work ethic we have,” said Maas. “All our standards are set, so that’s all we focus on.”
While they may have already clinched a playoff spot, Alouettes’ quarterback Cody Fajardo says this closing stretch remains critical because they want to finish the season strong, just like last year when they won their final five regular-season games before ultimately winning the Grey Cup.
“It doesn’t matter about what you do at the beginning of the year,” said Fajardo. “All that matters is how you end the year and how well you’re playing going into the playoffs so that’s what these games are about.”
The Alouettes’ are kicking off a three-game road stretch, one Fajardo looks forward to.
“You understand what kind of team you have when you play on the road because it’s us versus the world mentality and you can feel everybody against you,” said Fajardo. “Plus, I always tend to find more joy in silencing thousands of people than bringing thousands of people to their feet.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 13, 2024.
