God help me, how discussions can twist and turn in strange directions. A few days ago, I read how the Djokovic/Nadal/Federer era was supposedly bad… because they won everything, and that’s why Djokovic isn’t the GOAT, and that the real tennis GOAT is Serena (looking at tennis overall) because she didn’t have such weak competition and even though she won one Grand Slam less ??? Now I’m reading that Pogačar has weak competition, even though just a year ago it was clearly a top 6 group (Pogi, Jonas, Remco, Primož, WVA, MVDP), and it was considered one of the strongest generations. Because two of them started to pull ahead (also due to injuries to the others), suddenly it’s a weak generation ?? Someone also wrote that Pogačar lost and was twice second at the Tour (terribly bad) and that because of this he can no longer be in the GOAT discussion.
Pogačar is the GOAT because he is a total anomaly in modern cycling and does things that haven’t happened in the last 40 years. When Merckx was racing, cycling was seriously practiced in only 5 countries, and everyone rode all the races. An MvDP back then would have ridden everything, same with Jonas, Remco… and because of that, Pogačar would have won even more. Now, he has to beat a 15 kg heavier and fresh MvDP in the spring, a fresh Jonas in the summer, Remco in the Ardennes classics, and at the end of the year everyone again at the Worlds with a national team that can barely put together a squad.
I’m certain that if Remco had Pogačar’s achievements, he would have already been crowned the greatest of all time a year ago.
No what annoys ‘old timers’ is that the current generation of fans devalue Merckx and Hinault’s achievements, you’ve just done it yourself.
Cycling can be practiced in Kiribati , it doesn’t mean the competition is any better now. It certainly doesn’t mean the competition was bad in other eras.
Sticking just to the tour for a moment, I say again, with Vingegaard you can argue that there is better competition now at the tour for Pog, but take him away where’s the strength in depth? Nobody else is remotely capable of challenging for the tour.
There are two great tour riders now, Pog and ving, in Merckx era there were several, Merckx, Zoetemelk, Poulidor, Van Impe, Ocaña, Gimondi.
All of those riders were consistent challengers, all of them won the tour except Poulidor who was on the podium many times.
There is nobody outside the big two in the last five years who has been consistent, I think that’s damning on modern cycling.
It depends what you think is better, two great riders, or a bigger group of challengers.
I think at the very least you can say Merckx era was no ‘worse’ than the current era.
This is without getting in to the classics where once again the competition was, if not better, at least as good.
Recency bias is a big thing in any sport, just think for a moment if you took Pog or ving away, the tour would be dreadful. Even now some are saying it’s boring, it’d be ten times worse without one of those two.
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