Teams & Riders Tadej Pogačar discussion thread

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Pogacar is just a great rider, it doesn’t mean he has done the impossible by competing across all the races. It doesn’t mean the other riders are better.
Nibali was hardly a tour great but he did what Pogacar has done, just to a lesser extent, Valverde and Rodriguez too.

a truly great rider should be able to compete across all kinds of races, it should be expected.
Coppi did it, Merckx did it, Hinault did it, now Pog is going it.
Besides Vingo, the top ten is very weak in this era which helps.
Where is Basso, Ulrich, Mancebo, Valverde, Vino ? At least that eras top ten was strong.

I get you love Pog, but he hasn’t done enough to be the goat yet, sorry.
Mancebo?
You rate Valverde higher than Roglic in GTs for example?
 
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Mancebo?
You rate Valverde higher than Roglic in GTs for example?
not prime for prime, Roglic is perhaps the only one with some kind of consistency now.
look at the top ten in the 2000s, you had the same guys, Valverde, Sastre, Kloden, Mancebo, Ulrich, Pererio.
The gc contenders were stronger even if they couldn’t usually compete for the top one or two places.
 
I think it’s a bit of a bad argument. Today there are around, what 530 World Tour riders and around 400 Pro Conti riders. With over 900 professional riders, compared to what, maybe 50 in the days of Merckx i think it’s just logical to assume that the general level is much higher today. And that where it before would be 5 great riders from one nation there are still the same (or even more) number at a high level, but because of the general higher level and more nations around the relative level that would be enough to be a top 20 rider in the World before is now maybe equal to a top 50 rider in the World now.

Yes, that's a valid point.
I was making a similar point in my mind. There is a chance that the talent pool in France and Italy (as main examples, even though France is producing supposedly top talents lately) isn't really shrinking
It's just that as you said, in the cycling of 70's, let's say, Tiberi would have been top 3 or 5 GT rider and would have naturally won GT's, elevating him in the all time ranking, today he isn't even top 10, doesn't win anything and nobody talks about him as a great rider.

However, we can't know for sure whether that's true or not, IMO.
 
🤣 One reason is that the peloton was much weaker back then. As has been explained multiple times.
No, much better
You cannot even give a reason for what you’re saying.
Look at the top ten in Indurains first win. 10th place rider never really won much.
All the rest were monument winners, tour winners, world champions, giro winners.
This is what you had in Merckx time too.

The big two now beguile the fact that the rest of the field is poor.
 
No, much better
You cannot even give a reason for what you’re saying.
Look at the top ten in Indurains first win. 10th place rider never really won much.
All the rest were monument winners, tour winners, world champions, giro winners.
This is what you had in Merckx time too.

The big two now beguile the fact that the rest of the field is poor.
Yes, very much better. That's why GC riders cannot win monuments today, except a few.
 
Yes, that's a valid point.
I was making a similar point in my mind. There is a chance that the talent pool in France and Italy (as main examples, even though France is producing supposedly top talents lately) isn't really shrinking
It's just that as you said, in the cycling of 70's, let's say, Tiberi would have been top 3 or 5 GT rider and would have naturally won GT's, elevating him in the all time ranking, today he isn't even top 10, doesn't win anything and nobody talks about him as a great rider.

However, we can't know for sure whether that's true or not, IMO.
Even WVA would contest GTs in his prime.
 
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