end of the Hautacam neared Vingegaard rode away, putting over another minute into the defending champ, likely creating too great a deficit to be overcome in the final ITT. Pogačar's aggressive sprinting and battles with Vingegaard essentially blew the rest of field apart to the point that he had about a five-minute lead on 3rd place Geraint Thomas, and was 2nd in the Points Classification without even targeting the Green Jersey. After the conclusion of the ITT on stage 20 his 2nd place overall was solidified. As was his third consecutive white jersey for best young rider, which tied him with Jan Ullrich and Andy Schleck for the most all time. It was confirmed by Director of the Vuelta a España, Javier Guillén, that Pogačar would not be entering the 2022 edition of the race. Instead it was said that Pogačar was going to concentrate on collecting points in other races in the 2022 UCI World Tour. Comparisons with Eddy Merckx While many had been hesitant to make comparisons between Pogačar and Merckx following his first Tour victory, before he even started his second Tour, Cyrille Guimard, a former rival of Merckx and a Directeur Sportif of Greg LeMond, as well as of former Tour champions Van Impe, Fignon and Hinault claimed that Pogačar was above the level of both Merckx and Hinault. Then, following his performance on stage eight, former Tour de France winner Joop Zoetemelk compared the young Slovenian to Merckx. By the end of the race Merckx himself said that he regarded the Slovenian as "the new Cannibal", in reference to his own nickname, also suggesting that "If nothing happens to him, he can certainly win the Tour de France more than five times". After the 2021 Il Lombardia, Merckx said that he has heard plenty of cyclists called "the new Merckx", but none of them ever fulfilled the promise. In Pogačar's case he thinks it is finally true because of the races he has already won. Ernesto Colnago said that, according to his experience, Pogačar will be "the only one following Eddy Merckx". Personal life Tadej was born and grew up in Komenda, 20 km north of the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana. His mother Marjeta is a teacher of French and his father Mirko formerly worked in management at a chair factory before joining Tadej's former team as part of their management team in 2021. Tadej