On a bit of a tangent, I hope that this year's classics season might do something to change the narrative that a race is automatically boring if Pogacar is on the start line. He's done five 1-day races so far this year, and "only" won two. However, he's been instrumental in making each of those races as entertaining as it was. Strade was arguably the least exciting, but even that was more suspenseful than usual because of the crash. San Remo was one of the most exciting races I've ever seen, because of the insane way Pogacar decided to race it. Flanders was great fun, with a lot of top tier contenders. Roubaix wasn't as good as it could have been had Pogacar not crashed, but it was still more entertaining because Pogacar was there (imagine, if you will, the same edition, with Ganna and Mads puncturing and no Pogacar). And of course Amstel was great: the image of Remco and Skjelmose gradually hunting down one of Pogacar's YOLO attacks will stay with me for a long time.
It sort of confirms what I thought a lot last year when people were complaining about Pogacar's dominance. Like yes, it wasn't always super exciting, but it was also caused by quite a unique set of circumstances: Pogacar going to the Giro meant he skipped a lot of the classics; Remco was injured and therefore absent from Liege; none of the top GC guys rode the Giro; Vingegaard wasn't on top form for the Tour; Pog skipping the Olympics meant he was perhaps fresher towards the end of the season and better able to carry his WC form through Emilia and Lombardy than, say, Remco.
This year has been quite different already: Pogacar and MdvP have come face to face more often; Remco is at the Ardennes in what looks like very good shape; and Vingegaard will hopefully come into the Tour in top shape. Pog might win Liege and the Tour regardless, but hopefully it will put an end to the ridiculous "Pogacar kills cycling" narrative that I kept seeing last year.
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