Teams & Riders Best riders never to win a monument

[Lorzenz08]

An other one who I think should be on the list, for at least current riders : Filippo Ganna

 

[Peyroteo94]

An other one who I think should be on the list, for at least current riders : Filippo Ganna

This must be a joke...

 

[rallybanana]

There's at least four riders who have had a top-10 finish in all monuments and a podium in three (and haven't won any)

Maertens: 5 + 2 + 3 + 2 + 5 = 17
Verbeeck: 4 + 2 + 6 + 2 + 3 = 17
Lemond: 2 + 7 + 4 + 3 + 2 = 18
Dierickx: 8 + 2 + 2 + 2 + 5 = 19

 

[Devil's Elbow]

An other one who I think should be on the list, for at least current riders : Filippo Ganna

Lol. There are 100+ riders who also didn't win/are yet to win a monument who should be considered before him. And even among currently active riders you have Pedersen, Ciccone and Matthews who are all clearly ahead of him, as well as Moscon and Hirschi who got screwed out of ≥50% chances of winning one by bad luck.

 

[Pantani_lives]

This question can be approached in two ways. The best riders in general who never won a monument are Indurain, Zoetemelk, Contador, Froome, Maertens and Ocaña - but most of these are specialists of stage races. A more interesting question is who were the best riders in monuments without winning one.

Here's a list of the riders with the most top 10 places in monuments without winning one. Between brackets is their number of podium places.

1. Frans Verbeeeck 28 (8)
2. Freddy Maertens 20 (3)
3. Michael Boogerd 16/11* (7/6*)
4. George Hincapie 16/11* (2/0*)
5. Carlo Galetti 16 (4)
6. Marc Sergeant 15 (1)

*Boogerd and Hincapie both have five disqualifications.

So Frans Verbeeck is the right answer. He's won Amstel, Flèche, Omloop, E3, Brabantse Pijl and a Belgian title in the era of Merckx and De Vlaeminck, but never a monument. They were going 5 km/h too fast for him.

And here are some other interesting ones. Mads Pedersen should certainly be in the debate with five podium places.

• Fabio Baldato 12 (4)
• Mads Pedersen 11 (5)
• Zdeněk Štybar 10 (2)
• Joop Zoetemelk 10 (0)
• André Dierickx 9 (4)
• Michael Matthews 9 (3)
• Thor Hushovd 8 (4)
• Sep Vanmarcke 8 (3)
• Greg LeMond 6 (3)

 

[Zoetemelk-fan]

To avoid too much recency bias I would like to restrict this to only retired riders and active riders 30 and older thus increasingly less likely to make that breakthrough.

I'm out of those discussions where bias is even mentioned. And number '30' is just extra artificial layer on top of the 'active riders' layer. But I've already gotten over that a long time ago. Much more interesting to become wiser and expand your horizons by having the discussions delve into the history books. Also the pages you yourself have experienced, but which you have forgotten in the meantime.