Roger And Rafa With A Young Tennis Player At The Rafa Nadal Academy, Mallorca, 2024

THE FINAL: Tadej Pogačar v. Jonas Vingegaard

All propaganda under the cut:

Tadej Pogačar Propaganda

Jonas Vingegaard Propaganda

He is CUTE, he is SMOL, he has a CUTE NOSE and FRECKLES and EYES AS BLUE AS THE ENDLESS SKY---

OK no but seriously, he's amazing. As absurd as it can sound since this is one of the best riders in the world, he's always the underdog in people's minds. Somehow, no one ever thinks "OK I think Jonas is going to win this stage today", and when he does, they're like "OK he won but he still wasn't out of this world, it's because the others were having a bad day", and when he has a stellar day they're like "HE'S DOPING FOR SURE". It's like nothing he ever does is good enough and YET he doesn't give a fuck and keeps performing despite the pressure.

Being consistently good when everyone expects you to win is talent, but being consistently good when everyone hopes you'll lose is something else too.

And he's an incredible human being to boot. He's kind, he's compassionate, he's sensitive, he doesn't have a mean bone in him, he's affectionate, thoughtful. Remember that time during TdF 2022 when he asked Grischa to tell him if he could slow down at the end of the TT to let Wout win the stage? Yeah. He's that kind of guy.

He's a crier. It's cute and it makes me want to hug him. He loves his family and he always has a good word for his rivals and he's humble and I relate so much to his introverted personality and he's a cinnamon roll and a cutie patootie. But when he puts on his sunglasses, he looks like A WAR MACHINE.

(but a cute one)

He got a lot of heat when he didn't wait for Sepp on the Angliru during this Vuelta, only the instructions of the team before that clusterfuck stage were to battle it out between them and he probably liked it even less than us because he wanted Sepp to win the Vuelta from the beginning.

And need I say anything about the absolute sportsmanship of this man? When he lost his balance in the Col of Spandelles, TdF 2022, Tadej didn't miss the opportunity and powered away from him, but when Tadej was the one who crashed two minutes later, he waited for him. HE WAITED FOR HIM.

And he made the sport all the better for it and gave us one of the finest images in cycling history.

if you like MvDP, consider that though in these days when van der Poel is showing up with a mullet, Jonas did long hair earlier and better.

though there has been a change of style

If you like WvA, consider that some of the BEST hug pictures only exist due to Jonas being the kind of teammate whom others want to hug AND eminently sized for hugs/lifts

(we've all seen this but we can look at it again)

He's got sportsmanship. He's got incredible skills. He's even a dad! Maybe he's not always good at smiling for the cameras but he can sure smile for his family

Most importantly, he's a TdF winner with the time trial of the year and he cannot ride his goddamn bike without hands without his body language screaming oh god someone help me

handshakes

fonte: belga image

Two human sunflowers: Raymond Poulidor (Mathieu van der Poel's grandfather) and Wout van Aert.

I’ve been asked many times where the gifs from this post come from, with Rafa and Roger practicing side by side at Wimbledon and then one of Rafa’s little cousins going back to shake Roger’s hand. I originally found this video on DailyMotion and I’ve been trying for weeks now to track down the original uploader to no avail, so I’m posting the video here for you guys to enjoy.

If anyone knows the original link, please do let me know so I can give this person some proper credit. I’m only posting this myself because I could NOT find the original anymore!

Things to look forward to in this video, though: - Rafa being cute with his cousin.

- The contrast of Roger’s practice with Rafa playing football with his team.

- All the many “I AM SO DONE” and “WHAT ARE YOU DOING” faces Rafa was pulling at Maymo.

- Rafa’s cousin having a little chat with Roger.