Pogacar's last 12 months vs. rider XY's career

[Gigs_98]

After his win at Fleche Wallone Pogacar has reached a peak in all the points rankings looking at the results from the past twelve months. He can only lose points in LBL and will lose a lot of points during the Giro. With a succesful Tour-Vuelta double he could get to even higher heights, but we can only speculate on what is possible in the future. What we already know is that his past 12 months have been historically great. Here is a list of most of his biggest results:

Giro d'Italia 2024
-1st GC
-1st KoM
- 6 stage wins

Tour de France 2024
- 1st GC
- 6 stage wins

1st Liege Bastogne Liege 2024
1st WCRR 2024
1st Il Lombardia 2024
1st Ronde van Vlaanderen 2025
2nd Paris Roubaix 2025
3rd Milano Sanremo 2025
(in particular he achieved a podium in every single monument)

1st GP de Montreal
1st Giro de'll Emilia
1st Strade Bianche
1st Fleche Wallone

1st UAE Tour (+2 stages)

What is noticable is that winning 6 major races (by which I mean GTs and monuments), is similar to what some greats of the previous generation have achieved over their entire career. Froome and Contador sit just above his number with 7 GTs, Boonen and Cancellara do the same just with one day races with 8 and 7 respectively. Valverde has the same number, while Sagan's 5 wins are just below him. But of course there is more to the palmares of a cyclist than just counting the number of wins he got in certain races, so would you actually say that Pogacar's last 12 months were as succesful as the careers of these guys? Probably not, but as you go down the list of succesful cyclists from the previous generation the question becomes harder and harder to answer. So let's try to do just that. What palmares would you rather have? The one of some great cyclist from the past, or one consisting of the last 12 months of Tadej Pogacar?

Unfortunately 10 options are not nearly enough to cover every cyclist where this question is worth asking, so feel free to discuss people not mentioned in this poll. I tried to make a list of the ten most succesful riders to retire in the last ten years, which are the options in the poll (sorted by year of retirement). I think this list includes cyclists ranging from "clearly Pogacar's last 12 months have been more succesful than their career" to "clearly their career has been more succesful than Pogacar's last 12 months". Really curious about peoples opinion on this.

 

[Red Rick]

All but Rodriguez and Evans. Maybe throw in Gilbert as well

 

[YavorD]

When I think about it, 3 monuments+ 2 GT's (with a ton of stages) + a WC, that's probably bigger than almost everyone in the list.

I'd only get Nibali above because of the sheer diversity (yes, I rate diversity ) of his palmares.

 

[Red Rick]

I am not sure I must laugh or be offended by Froome not being on the list.

 

[Gigs_98]

Unfortunately I really think it's pretty clear cut for most riders and there are only a few where this is an actual discussion. With Gilbert and Cavendish I think you can really go both ways and it strongly depends on how to value GT stage wins and accumulation of results vs best wins. At the end I didn't vote for them because I think the TdF GC is just a much, much bigger deal than anything else in this sport. But I think for those who value them higher than me, Alaphilippe once he retires or Vinokurov if you go a bit further back to the past, could be interesting. But then I didn't want to exclude anyone from the poll and break the rules I set myself.

 

[Gigs_98]

I am not sure I must laugh or be offended by Froome not being on the list.

Not retired yet. I thought about including him anyway, but he would be such an obvious vote anyway that I decided against it. Tbh I thought that a lot of riders on the list might be too obvious votes but then some might value the versatility of Pogacars year very highly so I decided to keep guys like Boonen and Cancellara in.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

I'm giving away my GT bias here, but I'd only take Contador's palmares over Pogacar's last 12 months. To me, 3 each of TDF, Giro, Vuelta, plus all the 1-week stage races is well above Pogacar's last 12 months.

But no number of sprint stage wins >>> multiple GTs + monuments. (Cav)
And Monuments + multiple GTs > many Monuments, IMO

 

[Red Rick]

So I'll go by every one I guess, plus a few where I'm actually malding at the erasure

Alberto Contador - 100% no question

Vincenzo Nibali - 100%. no question

Chris Froome - 100% no question but Pogacar's greatest achievement is making me miss the Froome days to the point I'm puking in my mouth typing this only just a little

Alejandro Valverde - 100% - I just think Valverde won way too much in totality to be erased by a lack of TdF victory, even if I spent a decade flaming him for not winning enough of the Tier 1 races.

Paolo Bettini - 100%. I guess you just picked the 10 most recent retired names that come to mind, but in all these best of 21st century discussions there is an amount of erasure of the best 1 day rider this century that just should not be tolerated.


Peter Sagan - 50/50. Up next a group of riders with quite a bit of similarity in big win, who all fit in the same tier for me. The main question is how much stock do you put in a TdF/Giro win versus a monument/WC win, and how much do you give in addition for the intangible of winning 3 WCs. I can lean either way on these 4. I'll go ahead and call Sagan overrated because he was always rated as way more dominant than he actually was, and he did an amount of bottling in Sanremo that puts Tottenham Hotspur to shame, but I guess you can let him get off on the Valverde treatment cause he did win a huge load of stuff, but at the level below monuments/GTs Valverde.


Tom Boonen - 50/50. Somewhat similar to Sagan, but only the 1 WT but 5 more cobbled monuments. I supported Boonen at the time he was active, but I've also long thought he was kinda overrated, but I guess the 7 monuments and total amount of wins is just too much here

Fabian Cancellara - 50/50 too. Monument palmares basically the same as Boonen, no WC but unlike many I do actually give a decent bit of credit for TT WC and OG, which sort of becomes the tiebreaker on the 50/50 here.

Oscar Freire - 50/50 I'm gonna give him a 50/50 cause he won 3 damn WC and 3 damn Sanremo's and he's always left out of these discussions, though I guess he won his first WC in '99. Guess you have to go with the negative side of the 50/50 here but I think i have to put him on the list anyway.


Mark Cavendish - 10/90, and I'll take the 10 purely because I think there's something to be said for being the GOAT sprinter of all time versus Pog's 12 month palmares and imagine they both raced in the 80s or something I'm pretty sure it's Cav's record that would stand out more while Pog's palmares would just become an annoyingly hard trivia question.


Philippe Gilbert - 0/100. Just don't get me started on Gilbert. Outside of the feigned versatility, there's basically nothing that speaks for Gilbert. Most overrated rider of the 2010s.

Damiano Cunego - 0/100. Cunego is an obvious 0/100 but I feel obliged to mention him because I used to meme Cunego having a better Tier 1 palmares than Valverde in the old Nibali-Valverde wars (new accounts may wanna read up on the lore).

Cadel Evans - 0/100. Solid, impressive 0/100. Has nothing on Pog's 12 months apart from being better at punching camera's.

Joaquim Rodriguez - 0/100. The case to be made for Purito is 1) he has a way better nickname than Pogacar could ever dream of and 2) he has an entire category of climb named after him, but neither are good enough arguments. Still think Purito of 2012/2013 is way underrated and the amount of big stuff he almost won is near legendary.


Of current riders I'd put Roglic and MvdP in the solid 100% tier, Evenepoel in the 50/50 and Vingegaard/Van Aert in the 0/100 even if they're miles removed from each other.

 

[Gigs_98]

So I'll go by every one I guess, plus a few where I'm actually malding at the erasure

Alberto Contador - 100% no question

Vincenzo Nibali - 100%. no question

Chris Froome - 100% no question but Pogacar's greatest achievement is making me miss the Froome days to the point I'm puking in my mouth typing this only just a little

Alejandro Valverde - 100% - I just think Valverde won way too much in totality to be erased by a lack of TdF victory, even if I spent a decade flaming him for not winning enough of the Tier 1 races.

Paolo Bettini - 100%. I guess you just picked the 10 most recent retired names that come to mind, but in all these best of 21st century discussions there is an amount of erasure of the best 1 day rider this century that just should not be tolerated.


Peter Sagan - 50/50. Up next a group of riders with quite a bit of similarity in big win, who all fit in the same tier for me. The main question is how much stock do you put in a TdF/Giro win versus a monument/WC win, and how much do you give in addition for the intangible of winning 3 WCs. I can lean either way on these 4. I'll go ahead and call Sagan overrated because he was always rated as way more dominant than he actually was, and he did an amount of bottling in Sanremo that puts Tottenham Hotspur to shame, but I guess you can let him get off on the Valverde treatment cause he did win a huge load of stuff, but at the level below monuments/GTs Valverde.


Tom Boonen - 50/50. Somewhat similar to Sagan, but only the 1 WT but 5 more cobbled monuments. I supported Boonen at the time he was active, but I've also long thought he was kinda overrated, but I guess the 7 monuments and total amount of wins is just too much here

Fabian Cancellara - 50/50 too. Monument palmares basically the same as Boonen, no WC but unlike many I do actually give a decent bit of credit for TT WC and OG, which sort of becomes the tiebreaker on the 50/50 here.

Oscar Freire - 50/50 I'm gonna give him a 50/50 cause he won 3 damn WC and 3 damn Sanremo's and he's always left out of these discussions, though I guess he won his first WC in '99. Guess you have to go with the negative side of the 50/50 here but I think i have to put him on the list anyway.


Mark Cavendish - 10/90, and I'll take the 10 purely because I think there's something to be said for being the GOAT sprinter of all time versus Pog's 12 month palmares and imagine they both raced in the 80s or something I'm pretty sure it's Cav's record that would stand out more while Pog's palmares would just become an annoyingly hard trivia question.


Philippe Gilbert - 0/100. Just don't get me started on Gilbert. Outside of the feigned versatility, there's basically nothing that speaks for Gilbert. Most overrated rider of the 2010s.

Damiano Cunego - 0/100. Cunego is an obvious 0/100 but I feel obliged to mention him because I used to meme Cunego having a better Tier 1 palmares than Valverde in the old Nibali-Valverde wars (new accounts may wanna read up on the lore).

Cadel Evans - 0/100. Solid, impressive 0/100. Has nothing on Pog's 12 months apart from being better at punching camera's.

Joaquim Rodriguez - 0/100. The case to be made for Purito is 1) he has a way better nickname than Pogacar could ever dream of and 2) he has an entire category of climb named after him, but neither are good enough arguments. Still think Purito of 2012/2013 is way underrated and the amount of big stuff he almost won is near legendary.


Of current riders I'd put Roglic and MvdP in the solid 100% tier, Evenepoel in the 50/50 and Vingegaard/Van Aert in the 0/100 even if they're miles removed from each other.

Concerning the people I included, I couldn't make up my mind because I didn't want to just take the 10 best riders of the 21st century since I thought that would lead to a very one-sided poll, but I also didnt want to leave out anyone because then who do you leave out? So I set myself the arbitrary rule of "riders who retired in the last 10 seasons" and went with that (I realized Evans essentially retired in 2014 only after I made the poll). I also wanted to keep guys like Purito in because I thought some people might just value the quantity of good results, even if they weren't wins, very highly. I really struggled to predict how people would vote on this.

Concerning the people you mentioned, I agree with Bettini being 100% and Freire being 50%. I think you also have to consider that winning the WCRR 3 times is just a much bigger deal than winning LBL+Lombardia+RVV. It's the same reason why I think Sagan is a relatively easy pick, easier than Freire based on Sagan being way more successful outside of monuments.

Cunego I considered instead of Purito but honestly what Cunego did outside of those Lombardia wins and one Giro is so underhwelming I just couldn't see anyone voting for him. Neither he nor Rodriguez have the results to match Pogacars year but at least Purito feels like he was actually as strong as some above him on the list, he just never had the stars aligning, similarly to Van Aert more recently.

 

[hayneplane]

They come in several brackets for me:

Clearly Yes:
Boonen , Cancellara, Nibali, Contador, Valverde

Yes but room for doubt:
Sagan, Gilbert

No:
Evans, Cavendish, Rodriguez

I would still argue Nibali has a palmares that far exceeds his actual talent but the breadth of his victories has to be respected which is where Gilbert sneaks through with wins in 4 different monuments plus the WC.

I think Boonen is the closest to sliding from clearly yes to room for doubt as I don’t rate the competition he had and the monuments he won were stacked up solely on the cobbles.

Cavendish is obviously the most prolific winner both at world tour level and overall but I just don’t rate sprint wins as highly.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Concerning the people I included, I couldn't make up my mind because I didn't want to just take the 10 best riders of the 21st century since I thought that would lead to a very one-sided poll, but I also didnt want to leave out anyone because then who do you leave out? So I set myself the arbitrary rule of "riders who retired in the last 10 seasons" and went with that (I realized Evans essentially retired in 2014 only after I made the poll). I also wanted to keep guys like Purito in because I thought some people might just value the quantity of good results, even if they weren't wins, very highly. I really struggled to predict how people would vote on this.

Concerning the people you mentioned, I agree with Bettini being 100% and Freire being 50%. I think you also have to consider that winning the WCRR 3 times is just a much bigger deal than winning LBL+Lombardia+RVV. It's the same reason why I think Sagan is a relatively easy pick, easier than Freire based on Sagan being way more successful outside of monuments.

Cunego I considered instead of Purito but honestly what Cunego did outside of those Lombardia wins and one Giro is so underhwelming I just couldn't see anyone voting for him. Neither he nor Rodriguez have the results to match Pogacars year but at least Purito feels like he was actually as strong as some above him on the list, he just never had the stars aligning, similarly to Van Aert more recently.

Are you weighting jerseys and stages super heavily?

Rider A
WCC x 3, RVV x 1, PR x 1, 18 GT stage wins
(0 GTs, 5 Monuments / WCC)

Rider B
vs. Tour x 1, Giro x 1, WCC x 1, RVV x 1, LBL x 1, Il Lombardia x 1, 12 GT stage wins
(2 GTs, 4 Monuments / WCC)

To me I would hands down take the palmares of Rider B.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Nibali vs. Pogacar is the closest comparison to me. In some ways it gets down to whether you rate a Vuelta or a WCC higher. In the context of already winning the Tour and the Giro, I'd probably go WCC > Vuelta, even though that goes against my general preference for GT > 1-day race. Tough call.

Rider A
Tour x 1 w/ 6 stages, Giro x 1 w/ 7 stages, Vuelta x 1 w/ 2 stages, 3 Monuments

Rider B
Tour x 1 w/ 6 stages, Giro x 1 w/ 6 stages, WCC, 3 Monuments

 

[Netserk]

Nibali vs. Pogacar is the closest comparison to me. In some ways it gets down to whether you rate a Vuelta or a WCC higher. In the context of already winning the Tour and the Giro, I'd probably go WCC > Vuelta, even though that goes against my general preference for GT > 1-day race. Tough call.

Rider A
Tour x 1 w/ 6 stages, Giro x 1 w/ 7 stages, Vuelta x 1 w/ 2 stages, 3 Monuments

Rider B
Tour x 1 w/ 6 stages, Giro x 1 w/ 6 stages, WCC, 3 Monuments

Nibali has 2 Giri.

 

[Gigs_98]

Are you weighting jerseys and stages super heavily?

Rider A
WCC x 3, RVV x 1, PR x 1, 18 GT stage wins
(0 GTs, 5 Monuments / WCC)

Rider B
vs. Tour x 1, Giro x 1, WCC x 1, RVV x 1, LBL x 1, Il Lombardia x 1, 12 GT stage wins
(2 GTs, 4 Monuments / WCC)

To me I would hands down take the palmares of Rider B.

I think it's inportant to note that Sagans five big one day race wins are 3xWCRR, PR and RVV. Those are simply significantly more prestigious than LBL and Lombardia. I can still see the "Tour just trumps any accumulation of smaller wins" argument but Sagan really did win a lot outside of monuments and WCs. All those green jerseys, GT stage wins, smaller one day races and just the massive accumulation of stage wins from one week races and podiums from very big races are stuff that a single year of Pogacar simply doesn't have at all. The more I think about it the more unsure I become but I still lean towards Sagan

 

[Red Rick]

If we're really gonna argue Nibali here I'm gonna go back looking for my magical button.

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

Nibali has 2 Giri.

I read this as “Nibali has 2 Girl” at first. And you’re correct. My bar. I retract. Definitely going Nibali

 

[hayneplane]

I think it's inportant to note that Sagans five big one day race wins are 3xWCRR, PR and RVV. Those are simply significantly more prestigious than LBL and Lombardia. I can still see the "Tour just trumps any accumulation of smaller wins" argument but Sagan really did win a lot outside of monuments and WCs. All those green jerseys, GT stage wins, smaller one day races and just the massive accumulation of stage wins from one week races and podiums from very big races are stuff that a single year of Pogacar simply doesn't have at all. The more I think about it the more unsure I become but I still lean towards Sagan

The Sagan tipping point is winning 3 consecutive world championship road races especially for a small nation lacking the depth to control a major race.

 

[E_F_]

I am not sure I must laugh or be offended by Froome not being on the list.

We need Armstrong on there to really spice things up.

 

[E_F_]

I read this as “Nibali has 2 Girl” at first. And you’re correct. My bar. I retract. Definitely going Nibali

What about your bar?

 

[Samu Cuenca]

I read this as “Nibali has 2 Girl” at first. And you’re correct. My bar. I retract. Definitely going Nibali

Not that it should count for or against him here, but he does have 2 girls as well.

 

[Tonton]

No Vino option?

 

[VayaVayaVaya]

What about your bar?

I’m cutting myself off.

 

[Gratemans]

So I'll go by every one I guess, plus a few where I'm actually malding at the erasure

Alberto Contador - 100% no question

Vincenzo Nibali - 100%. no question

Chris Froome - 100% no question but Pogacar's greatest achievement is making me miss the Froome days to the point I'm puking in my mouth typing this only just a little

Alejandro Valverde - 100% - I just think Valverde won way too much in totality to be erased by a lack of TdF victory, even if I spent a decade flaming him for not winning enough of the Tier 1 races.

Paolo Bettini - 100%. I guess you just picked the 10 most recent retired names that come to mind, but in all these best of 21st century discussions there is an amount of erasure of the best 1 day rider this century that just should not be tolerated.


Peter Sagan - 50/50. Up next a group of riders with quite a bit of similarity in big win, who all fit in the same tier for me. The main question is how much stock do you put in a TdF/Giro win versus a monument/WC win, and how much do you give in addition for the intangible of winning 3 WCs. I can lean either way on these 4. I'll go ahead and call Sagan overrated because he was always rated as way more dominant than he actually was, and he did an amount of bottling in Sanremo that puts Tottenham Hotspur to shame, but I guess you can let him get off on the Valverde treatment cause he did win a huge load of stuff, but at the level below monuments/GTs Valverde.


Tom Boonen - 50/50. Somewhat similar to Sagan, but only the 1 WT but 5 more cobbled monuments. I supported Boonen at the time he was active, but I've also long thought he was kinda overrated, but I guess the 7 monuments and total amount of wins is just too much here

Fabian Cancellara - 50/50 too. Monument palmares basically the same as Boonen, no WC but unlike many I do actually give a decent bit of credit for TT WC and OG, which sort of becomes the tiebreaker on the 50/50 here.

Oscar Freire - 50/50 I'm gonna give him a 50/50 cause he won 3 damn WC and 3 damn Sanremo's and he's always left out of these discussions, though I guess he won his first WC in '99. Guess you have to go with the negative side of the 50/50 here but I think i have to put him on the list anyway.


Mark Cavendish - 10/90, and I'll take the 10 purely because I think there's something to be said for being the GOAT sprinter of all time versus Pog's 12 month palmares and imagine they both raced in the 80s or something I'm pretty sure it's Cav's record that would stand out more while Pog's palmares would just become an annoyingly hard trivia question.


Philippe Gilbert - 0/100. Just don't get me started on Gilbert. Outside of the feigned versatility, there's basically nothing that speaks for Gilbert. Most overrated rider of the 2010s.

Damiano Cunego - 0/100. Cunego is an obvious 0/100 but I feel obliged to mention him because I used to meme Cunego having a better Tier 1 palmares than Valverde in the old Nibali-Valverde wars (new accounts may wanna read up on the lore).

Cadel Evans - 0/100. Solid, impressive 0/100. Has nothing on Pog's 12 months apart from being better at punching camera's.

Joaquim Rodriguez - 0/100. The case to be made for Purito is 1) he has a way better nickname than Pogacar could ever dream of and 2) he has an entire category of climb named after him, but neither are good enough arguments. Still think Purito of 2012/2013 is way underrated and the amount of big stuff he almost won is near legendary.


Of current riders I'd put Roglic and MvdP in the solid 100% tier, Evenepoel in the 50/50 and Vingegaard/Van Aert in the 0/100 even if they're miles removed from each other.

Jfc Rick, get out of my mind already. I completely agree with this list.

 

[saunaking]

Wow lots of support for Valverde.
I dunno, i love the guy but he won one monument a bunch of times.
I rate his Vuelta lower than Horner's
Worlds win was great though.

i voted Sagz Nibz Contador Boonen & Cancellera

 

[Tanakka]

No matter how great the talent or efforts, some things just take time.
You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant - Warren Buffett


The crazy part is that for basically all of those who might be ahead, it's because of the sheer volume of races won multiple times:
no matter how talented are, you cannot win 4 vueltas in one year

If we were not to count multiple wins...

Aside from Nibali, who has as little as a shot?
Idk, perhaps Gilbert who obviously is lacking GTs but has 4 monuments out of 5 and a MSR podium + a WC?