The Pulse Newsletter 📣 | This is The Athletic’s daily sports newsletter. Sign up here to receive The Pulse directly in your inbox.🎆 Happy birthday, America! 🎆 250, wow … nearly old enough to rent a car. Inside today:
Tour de Pulse: More international sporting greatness is hereJuly often comes with a hint of … twisted dread at Pulse HQ. It’s typically a relative breather in the sports calendar, sure, but can also really force our creative process.This year, however, we’re fully enraptured by the biggest World Cup ever. We know nothing of a summer slog! This is a soccer country now. But I humbly ask you to find space for another multi-week competition with global touchpoints: the Tour de France, which runs from today through July 26.I probably say this every year, but this one really has everything, including likely GOAT debates. To cater to our soccer-pilled brains, I asked our Jacob Whitehead for a Tour cheatsheet in the form of a storyline Starting XI:
Can Tadej Pogačar secure a fifth Tour de France yellow jersey, equalling the record?
Who will be faster of the two Belgians in the sprints — Tim Merlier or Jasper Philipsen?
Can 19-year-old Paul Seixas prove that he has the talent to end France’s 41-year wait for a Tour winner?
