How many grand tours the last 20 years were won by a worse climber than his direct competition in that race?
Perhaps operationalized as inferior avg.index (average of top three to five) in that race.
These comes to mind as more likely than not:
Wiggins 12'
Kuss 23'
Evans 11'
Dumoulin 17'
Depending on analytic choices perhaps:
Yates 25'
Froome 17'
Contador 15'
Bernal 19'
Aru 15'
Hesjedal 12'
Roglic 23'
Pogacar 20'
Normally it is easy to see who the best climber is in a race just by watching it. My Index is also not perfect to analyze this since riders often don't go all out or have 3 good performances but collapse later. It also weighs short climbs the same as long ones. Here is the
average of the top 3 performances for the winner and the 'other best climber' in those races.
(The others have already mentioned shortcomings of this method, so use it for
pure entertainment purposes.)
Tour 12: Wiggins 67.3 <--> 70.3 Froome
Vuelta 23: Kuss 80.3 <--> 86.3 Vingegaard
Tour 11: Evans 64.3 <--> 70.3 Schleck
Giro 17: Dumoulin 76 <--> 77 Quintana
Giro 25: Yates 78.7 <--> 85.3 Carapaz
Tour 17: Froome 70.3 <--> 73.3 Barguil
Giro 15: Contador 71.3 <--> 72 Landa
Tour 19: Bernal 76 <--> 77.3 Pinot
Giro 23: Roglic 80.7 <--> 77.7 Thomas
Tour 20: Pogacar 87 <--> 82.3 Roglic
I left out the Giro 12 and Vuelta 15, but Aru and Hesjedal might have been the strongest in these races.