Any ranking with Valverde in the top10 is useless.
4 LBL
1 WC
1 Vuelta
I can name 20 riders with a better palmares.
Any list WITHOUT Valverde in at least top 20 is totally nincompoop. Rankings - in any sport will always overrate ancient athletes (i.e. pre modern sports which is should differ within sports but would approximately be around the 1970s/1980s), full stop. Good examples are Ali vs Joe Louis, Bolt vs Owens, Kramer vs Heiden, Phelps vs Spitz etc.
Modern cyclist are stronger, more versatile, technically more adept and overall better than those competing up until the 2000s. Cycling has become so much more professional, competitive and fast that those in ancient times would have stood no chance of ever competing against the best and that includes the likes of Indurain, Hinault, Binda and of course Merckx.
Could these riders have adopted modern training science and got the better of themselves? Absolutely yes, but their ancient performances were not that impressive and would at best given them a domestique position in a modern world tour team. That's a fact.
No one - clean or not clean - has ever been close to that performance of Pogacar so clearly he is currently the all time best cycling has ever produced. Then follows some other modern day rider such as MVDP, Sagan, Gilbert, Boonen and Cancellara.
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