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I think Pog didn't rate him despite his brief show on Ventoux last year. I mean Pog won that Tour by 5 minutes. The words "meteoric rise" sum up Vingo. Yes Pog was over confident on stage 11 and fell into the trap but it was partially understandable.
I don't buy it. I don't think they were that naive and that unprepared. Anyone who took into consideration all the factors of last years race, could see that they were much closer in level than what the time differences indicated. Vingegaard had crashed hard on the stage where Pog did his raid, but basically matched him 1 to 1 after that, and dropped him on Ventoux. I think they knew Vingegaard could be trouble this year, and that's why Pog went for every single second for the first 10 days.
Well, it wasn't only me and after Tirreno and Flanders, yes, he was demonstrating that rarity of genius not seen since Hinault. So how do you put it? And, yes, despite loosing this Tour (and Hinault met his match in Fignon and then Lemond, which took nothing away from his genius), I still see Tadej that way.
The strange thing about the Tour last year was it was basically 2 halves where Pogacar obliterated everyone in the rain and cold and the 2nd half where Vingegaard looked to be a stiff challenge on Ventoux and in the Pyrenees. And the real question was sort of which of the 2 halves of the Tour reflected their true ability the most.
People seem to have completely forgotten that Vingegaard crashed on the day where Pogacar took all that time. The only other day where he lost time, was the day after that. Looking at the numbers, it's also clear that Pogacars performance on Romme and Colombiere weren't nuclear compared to what he and others are usually capable of. It's just that the others went quite slow. I think it should be clear by now that the second half of the race was a better representation of how strong they were in relation to each other. Vingegaard isn't actually that much stronger this year, he was just a leader from the start and didn't crash.
It's great for cycling that Tadej has serious competition and I'm willing to reevalute, but thus far I haven't seen anything like it since Hinault.It wasn't just you, but it did seem like you went a bit above and beyond with references to Mozart et al., and seeming 100% certain he wouldn't be beaten like that for a decade. Now it seems possible that he won't be the dominant GT rider of his generation, and he'll have to compete with van Aert for title as the best all rounder, so it puts him in a slightly different light, and his aura in of invincibility is gone now. Time will tell, and he might just bounce back and still dominate future Tours, but I don't think Merckx or Mozart were ever beaten like that
I also still think Roglic would have been right up there if he didn't have two broken vertabrae.
Roglic has peaked mate, get over it. He will never be able to contend for a Tour de France win again.
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