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Teams & Riders Tadej Pogačar discussion thread

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Y-axis: # of big wins
X-axis: age in days
Contains pretty much every rider with at least 5 big wins

With today's victory Pogacar is actually somewhat keeping pace with Merckx in terms of 'Big Wins' (GT, monument, WCRR or OGRR). I'll add though that people here forget just how young Evenepoel is. He's represented by the gray line just under Pogacar. He recently won OGRR just a little behind Pogacar's pace at that time though he's unlikely to replicate Pogacar's 2024 season.
 
Incredible ride. The autumn'24 version of Pogacar is heavier than the summer one but in terms of pure power it must be the strongest ever.
My eyes almost came out of their sockets when I saw the time gap. Greatest season of all time and would be a touchy act to beat. Insane year for Pogacar who’s looked to improve every race.
Crazy but indeed he just seems to gain more power from the Tour demolision even and tbh hardly that weird considering his age (which is crazy to think about, he is in that age he should only get stronger) and the fact about the new training is just getting implemented.

Is it safe to say he is looking good for next season? Or to early to tell maybe.
 
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Crazy but indeed he just seems to gain more power from the Tour demolision even and tbh hardly that weird considering his age (which is crazy to think about, he is in that age he should only get stronger) and the fact about the new training is just getting implemented.

Is it safe to say he is looking good for next season? Or to early to tell maybe.

5 months is a long time, we will see. If he's as dominant next spring he will have his best chance to date in MSR and will have a decent shot even at PR.
 
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5 months is a long time, we will see. If he's as dominant next spring he will have his best chance to date in MSR and will have a decent shot even at PR.
I was joking btw in regards to next year:sweatsmile: But MSR yeah will remain his hardest race to win regardless how much stronger he is duo to the nature of the course me thinks. Or remove MVDP and I think hes alone at the finish line.

But needless to say he is looking good for next year barring any illness in the winter or whatever he will most likely just improve from this level even which is crazy to fathom but very very logical.
 
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I remember the days when @Red Rick would complain about people saying Gilbert 2011 was the best season in modern cycling history. That used to be a discussion not so long ago and seasons with one big win were a serious part of that discussion. Nobody even thought about comparing recent seasons with the best years of Mercx because how could anyone compare success in this modernized and professionalized era of hyper specialisation to the 60s and 70s. Pogacar has completely changed what we deem achievable in modern cycling for a few years now but even then I did not believe a season like this would happen.

I was aware that even in previous years Pogacar could have won a lot more if everything had gone perfectly for him, but I assumed he would need a lot of luck to have a season this succesfull. But no, not only has he just finished perhaps the greatest cycling season in history in terms of prestige of his wins, he also did it by winning each and every one of his objectives in an incredibly dominant fashion. Despite being a really good sprinter, he only got two of his 22 stage or one day race wins this year in a sprint. Those two stages were a meaningless 4th stage win at the Volta Catalunya and a Giro stage where his teammates had to persuade him to bother about the stage win in the first place. His biggest defeat of the year was a 2nd place due to a poorly timed bike throw that meant he would only win 6 instead of 7 TdF stages. I guess he lost MSR so there is one relevant race he didn't win.

I don't really understand it. It's now the fourth year in a row where the season finishes and I'm thinking "who would have thought this was possible in modern cycling". The last three times this happened Pogacar turned out to be even better a year later so today I'm trembling thinking of what's to come. It's a special thing to watch cycling history being rewritten but sometimes I wish we could go back to discussing whether Gilbert in 2011 was better than Boonen in 2005
 
I never thought pog would win msr in anytime but seeing what he does at worlds & today i think winning it next year is looking more likely. I think he was not on such form earlier this year but with his worlds form if he goes all out on cipressa he will drop everybody
MSR is a race any rider can win, because it is a race where many scenarios can play out.

The beauty of that race is it may be a race Pog might never win, despite being as great as he is.

We will just have to wait and see.
 
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I never thought pog would win msr in anytime but seeing what he does at worlds & today i think winning it next year is looking more likely. I think he was not on such form earlier this year but with his worlds form if he goes all out on cipressa he will drop everybody
Yeah, but he won't drop them for good. There will be fairly big group with a lot of (fresh) helpers and they will reel him in.
 
MSR is a race any rider can win, because it is a race where many scenarios can play out.

The beauty of that race is it may be a race Pog might never win, despite being as great as he is.

We will just have to wait and see.
He said recently he would go to grave to win msr i.e he would probably try cipressa all out cause poggio on 3% he cant drop mvdp even if he goes all out
 
Yeah, but he won't drop them for good. There will be fairly big group with a lot of (fresh) helpers and they will reel him in.
Well the favourites have to choose to sit or follow him. In 2022 we saw quite a small group going up cipressa so its possible for this pog to drop them if it is ridden hard. Its about uaes team selection that matters b/c if they send a team like this year there is no chance but with polit,vermersch they can position the team for cipressa and launch pogi on the 5.6km climb.