Teams & Riders Tadej Pogačar discussion thread

[Berniece]

Ayuso at the Tour this year will be very instructive if he has a smooth buildup as we should find out whether he has many more levels in him or if he is an early maturer who is close to his peak at 21.

Felt that after the last Vuelta he might be an early peaker

 

[Miss Violet Smith]

I'm glad Contador (who I like) has such a high opinion of another rider I like. And clearly he has forgotten more about cycling than I will ever know.

However. Even as a staunch Pogačar fan, as someone super excited that he is doing the Giro and the Tour (though I could care less about the Tour) I must admit: I haven't really seen any indication that he could be at his best in two GTs with only a month in between to recover.

I'm not saying he can't! I would like nothing better than to be wrong and eat my words come July. But even winning the Giro is not a given.

As usual, the road will tell.

 

[rokovski]

Pog maybe going to win Giro in Rog style, with boni seconds? He is second best uphill sprinter.

 

[kn0s]

Pog maybe going to win Giro in Rog style, with boni seconds? He is second best uphill sprinter.

I really don't hope that will be the case.

 

[Peyroteo94]

People who thought Bernal was going to win +4 Tours are crazy. One could tell it was the weakest Tour since 2008.

 

[tobydawq]

People who thought Bernal was going to win +4 Tours are crazy. One could tell it was the weakest Tour since 2008.

He was also 22.

This is an incredible Captain Hindsight comment.

 

[Salvarani]

People who thought Bernal was going to win +4 Tours are crazy. One could tell it was the weakest Tour since 2008.

What are next week lottery numbers?

 

[hayneplane]

People who thought Bernal was going to win +4 Tours are crazy. One could tell it was the weakest Tour since 2008.

Yes maybe it wasn’t the best tour given how long Alaphillipe was up there but we didn’t know Pogacar was going to be this good so soon and nobody had envisioned Vingegaard being an all timer at that point.

Thinking he could win many tours wasn’t that wild a take.

 

[Salvarani]

It was a very wild take solely based on that no pure climber had ever won more than 1 TdF before and every multi Tour winner had been a great ITTer as well. In addition, he wasn't even the undisputed best climber that Tour or that season, and he was getting dropped through the first 2 weeks of that Tour.

Bernal was good/decent against the clock though, at least before his injury. Calling him a pure climber is a wild take. He was more versatile than that.

It was on his TT-bike he also injured himself, I believe.

 

[Cookster15]

People who thought Bernal was going to win +4 Tours are crazy. One could tell it was the weakest Tour since 2008.

Yeh, Kruijswijk came 3rd at 1'31" but the runner up was also the defending champion. So it can't have been that weak.

With the subsequent rise of Vingegaard and Pogacar its easy to lose perspective. In 2019 Bernal was the youngest winner since 1909. And his rise from neopro to TdF winner took place as quickly as Pogacar the year after. And Bernal's ride on Col de l'Iseran on the shortened stage was out of this world. So the expectations were understandable.

 

[scribers]

People who thought Bernal was going to win +4 Tours are crazy. One could tell it was the weakest Tour since 2008.

I would have not bet on Bernal winning only 1x

 

[Salvarani]

Yeh, Kruijswijk came 3rd at 1'31" but the runner up was also the defending champion. So it can't have been that weak.

With the subsequent rise of Vingegaard and Pogacar its easy to lose perspective. In 2019 Bernal was the youngest winner since 1909. And his rise from neopro to TdF winner took place as quickly as Pogacar the year after. And Bernal's ride on Col de l'Iseran on the shortened stage was out of this world. So the expectations were understandable.

I think people also just thought he was the next Sky/Ineos rider to dominate. It had almost been a decade with no stop in sight.

 

[Cookster15]

It was a very wild take solely based on that no pure climber had ever won more than 1 TdF before and every multi Tour winner had been a great ITTer as well. In addition, he wasn't even the undisputed best climber that Tour or that season, and he was getting dropped through the first 2 weeks of that Tour.

I don't think Bernal was a weak TT. He also lost very little time in the Pyrenees. Obviously he was peaking for the 3rd week when he was indisputably the best climber. Only 22 and youngest winner since 1909, the hype then was understandable and justified.

 

[Extinction]

If you need to time your peak so specifically you get dropped for 2 weeks and are completely at the mercy of your rivals aggression level, then you're not indisputably the best climber.

Like his one best performance in that Tour was putting like a minute into Kruijswijk who was letting his own domestique set the pace. Day after he got dropped again on Val Thorens by the way.

He was lucky Froome had his crash. He was lucky Thomas bottled his peak as hard as he did. He was lucky Jumbo prioritized Groenewegen over Roglic that year. And he was lucky with the Pinot freak injury. And he still won by barely 1'30 over Steven Kruijswijk.

There were like 5 reasons to question he would win the Tour 5 times, and the only reason to think he would do it was that he was super young.

The only reason to not have thought Bernal would have been a multi-Tour winner, would have been to have a crystal ball and foresee Pogacar and then Vingegaard. Period.

 

[Netserk]

Bernal was good/decent against the clock though, at least before his injury. Calling him a pure climber is a wild take. He was more versatile than that.

It was on his TT-bike he also injured himself, I believe.

He was a worse TTer than Sastre. Call that whatever you want.

 

[Salvarani]

He was a worse TTer than Sastre. Call that whatever you want.

Meaningless.

 

[Froome]

Bernal was also lucky with Tignes stage having been cut.

I never saw talent in bernal to win 4 or 5 Tours de France.

 

[BigCoward]

Anybody who was that good at that age back then, absolutely has to be expected to win multiple tours.

 

[BullsFan22]

Well there was no thread so I made one. This kid has a bright future ahead of him.

https://www.procyclingstats.com/rider/tadej-pogacar

Sealed the overall win at Tour de l'Avenir today by almost 1 and a half minutes, a dominant performance. And came 4th in Tour of Slovenia this year, but only beaten by Roglič, Uran and Mogorič. And in the final timetrial he was actually only second to Roglič. Great performance there as well.

And of course he signed for UAE for 2 years starting next year. I hope it's the right team for him, they're no exactly renowned for building up young talent. He and Roglič could be making a killer team in Lotto Jumbo.

A bright future indeed!

 

[Elos Anjos]

If you need to time your peak so specifically you get dropped for 2 weeks and are completely at the mercy of your rivals aggression level, then you're not indisputably the best climber.

Like his one best performance in that Tour was putting like a minute into Kruijswijk who was letting his own domestique set the pace. Day after he got dropped again on Val Thorens by the way.

He was lucky Froome had his crash. He was lucky Thomas bottled his peak as hard as he did. He was lucky Jumbo prioritized Groenewegen over Roglic that year. And he was lucky with the Pinot freak injury. And he still won by barely 1'30 over Steven Kruijswijk.

There were like 5 reasons to question he would win the Tour 5 times, and the only reason to think he would do it was that he was super young.

In hindsight, how can you send Roglic to the Giro when if not for a crash he would have been 3rd in the 2018 Tour?

 

[BullsFan22]

Anyway, I think getting over the Vingegård hurdle will be his toughest task. As physiologically gifted and mentally tough he is, winning the tour after winning the Giro will be very tough. And after that, he’ll need to basically rest.

I am guessing after the Giro he will only do the national championships (perhaps both the road and TT). What will he do after the tour? Probably no racing.

 

[BullsFan22]

In hindsight, how can you send Roglic to the Giro when if not for a crash he would have been 3rd in the 2018 Tour?

As great a career as Roglič has had, including his GT exploits, he’s had a lot of bad luck. Maybe now with a new team he can be more relaxed and won’t have the badly timed crashes (I mean crashes are never really timely…). He should have won all 3 GT’s if he had a bit more luck.

 

[SHAD0W93]

In hindsight, how can you send Roglic to the Giro when if not for a crash he would have been 3rd in the 2018 Tour?

Because we have the power of hindsight and he wasn’t the Roglic we’d later find out he’d turn into at the time. Jumbo and Roglic thought Giro would be better with close to double TT KMs, Crushweak looking in really good shape to threaten the rest.

Roglic targets Giro d'Italia victory in 2019 | Cyclingnews.com

Kruijswijk takes aim at Tour de France podium

www.cyclingnews.com

 

[staubsauger]

Because we have the power of hindsight and he wasn’t the Roglic we’d later find out he’d turn into at the time. Jumbo and Roglic thought Giro would be better with close to double TT KMs, Crushweak looking in really good shape to threaten the rest.

Roglic targets Giro d'Italia victory in 2019 | Cyclingnews.com

Kruijswijk takes aim at Tour de France podium

www.cyclingnews.com

Yeah, Roglic became the Roglic we know and Jumbo became the killer bees from the 2019 Vuelta a Espana onwards.

At the 2019 Roglic still looked quite vulnerable.

 

[Netserk]

Anybody who was that good at that age back then, absolutely has to be expected to win multiple tours.

Quintana did not improve much since his major breakthrough in the 2013 Tour. He never won the Tour, and by 2019 it was clear that he never would. Likewise with Andy Schleck, who was younger when he was 2nd in the Giro than Bernal was when he won the Tour. He improved, he matured as a rider, but he never won a GT and he never acquired the toolkit to dominate a stage race.

So it'd be unreasonable to expect with any certainty that Bernal would become a Tour dominator.