The 3 GT and 7 one-week races.

[hayneplane]

This was my only point. Pogacar has an opportunity window based upon his age. People are now starting to discuss when his career might end and at what age. Nobody can predict when an athlete will decline.

And I disagree that one day races - even P-R - get harder to win when riders are older. It is actually grand tours that get harder to win as your recovery declines.

I don't disagree that winning PR can be a more difficult challenge for a rider of his ilk than winning a grand tour. But in setting the bar too high he might leave himself short elsewhere. Its his career and still the best since Merckyx so I respect that. But I am a numbers man and to me it would seem incomplete if he never won that ugly sister GT knowing what he has achieved already.

Hopefully he proves me wrong and wins P-R and also a Vuelta later. But that is just one reason why I will never be a Tadej Pogacar

If he was simply pragmatically targeting the gaps then the lowest hanging fruit would be to tick off the stage races this year including Vuelta while waiting out a year or two on full focus at PR and MSR when MVDP is either full time on the golf course or sufficiently past his prime to no longer be a big favourite.

It is to his credit that he relishes the battles with fellow greats. Both Pog and MVDP surely rank alongside Merckx and De Vlaeminck in the top 5 one day racers of all time.

 

[Cookster15]

I think you are mixing up 'outsider looking objectively' and many 'causal fans'.

An outsider who follows cycling properly, knows that a PR would be bigger than a Vuelta.
Some casual fans, especially from the USA or sometimes even southern europe, basically are barely aware of the existence of monuments/classics.

Nibali, Contador and Froome won all three grand tours in their careers. Nobody is going to say Pogacar is an inferior rider to those three. But the lack of a Vuelta in Pogacar's palmarès is looking glaring. The lack of a PR victory is not.

The lofty position of monuments is mainly held in western Europe. Non Europeans only acknowledge them through familiarity with European professional racing and the history of the sport. Sure western Europe is the centre of the cycling universe but cycling is also a more global sport these days which is why more money came into the sport. UAE are an example of that.

Absolutely PR is a more important (bigger) race than a Vuelta, no argument. But quantitatively you can't compare a 6 hour PR with a three week Grand Tour. For example, physiologically there is no comparison between Matt Hayman and Tadej Pogacar. Even if the GT is raced conservatively it still drains the body in a way a monument never can. That is why the Giro-Tour double wasn't achieved for 26 years after Pantani in 1998. When Contador won the Vuelta on three separate occasions nobody in this forum discounted the feats.

And this thread is about GTs and week long stage races. IMO the Vuelta has become a glaring omission in Pogacar's palmarès. PR is not because for a rider of his generational talents PR is a bonus cherry.

 

[Rou]

So now I'm reading here that freaking Paris-Roubaix is more important and bigger than the Vuelta. It's not even funny.
People need to get a grip of reality. Grand Tours are in a different stratosphere compared to monuments. Everything else is just fanboyism and coping.

 

[Devil's Elbow]

The lofty position of monuments is mainly held in western Europe.

...he says when discussing Pogacar, a rider not from western Europe, who very obviously cares more about the monuments than the Giro/Vuelta.

 

[Salvarani]

And this thread is about GTs and week long stage races. IMO the Vuelta has become a glaring omission in Pogacar's palmarès. PR is not because for a rider of his generational talents PR is a bonus cherry.

Correct, thats what the thread is about.

Glaring omission is such an overstatement and overdramatic way of putting it though.

PR is huge in terms of potentially winning all the monuments. A feat very few riders has managed.

He is trying to do both of what the thread is about and winning the monuments.
He is trying to do both each season, but cant do it all in one.

Targeting all the monuments... just means he cant do two GTs in the same season and right now the Tour is the biggest priority when it comes to GTs. The Vuelta will just have to wait. Thats his and the teams decision. Be critical all you want but thats the situation. But he is "only" 27. Have some faith. He will get to it and try to win it.

I dont really understand how one cant understand he is trying to balance all he wants to achieve and thats his decision.

Being over ridiculous about this freaking Vuelta is getting out of hand in my opinion. Not targeted at you.

 

[Ilmaestro99]

TBF nobody really cares about the vuelta. Roubaix is probably a bigger race

 

[AmRacer]

TBF nobody really cares about the vuelta. Roubaix is probably a bigger race

Tour de France, Giro and P-R 🙄