The SCARY TRUTH About Tadej Pogacar Everyone Has FORGOTTEN

It is still too early to compare them. And even when Pogacar is older the comparsion will be hard because the sport has changed so much. Anyway he is just amazing and a joy to watch

Tadej Pogacar is clearly a second edition of The Cannibal. It just remains to be seen if Tadej’s reign will be as long and as enduring as that of Merckx

It’s hard to love cycling and criticize Merxkx. But he cheated a lot. If I was Pogi I’d be very uncomfortable with the comparison to him. In fact, it’s basically impossible to find any rider who was clean who had been this dominant. Infer from that what you like.

These comparisons are interesting, but not realistic. I started following racing during the 80's, and a lot has changed since then. It's not a completely different sport, but the demands on racers are different. During the 80's and before, pro racers proudly talked about competing in over 110 race days a year, and most of those races were for training where racers had no intention of actually trying to win. Modern racers might do 70, and take the races they compete in much more seriously. Comparing overall win to loss ratios isn't necessary an equivalent measurement from era to era. There was a bigger push by sponsors simply to have a racer make an, "appearance," during previous eras. As I understand it, when Jacques Anquetil won his fifth Tour of France he had no intention of winning at the beginning of the race, and was focused on winning a different grand tour (the Giro I think) that year as he had already won enough Tours. He was racing the Tour to support a teammate and to train. His teammate could not win (he crashed or got sick), so they asked him to win it. Anquetil agreed and won the race. When Pogicar shows up to a race, he's there to win, not to train or to meet appearance obligations. I mean no disrespect to racers from either era. Things are just different. Comparisons are fun, but difficult to qualify.

You forgot that Eddie raced against Pou Pou too

Pog is literally a once in a lifetime cyclist. Its super rare you get a guy who is a GC beast and also a one day specialist. He reminds me a complete and more consist version of Primoz Roglic. I think one thing Roglic has over Pog is his mental toughness. I’ve seen Pog crack much harder than Rog and I’ve also seen him lose his cool. Just makes you wonder how good Roglic could have been if he started cycling as a kid. One thing that I’ve noticed with Pog is that when he trains and focuses on the spring clsssics, it tends to effect him at the Grand Tours and usually his first GT of the year is The Tour. Taking part in the Giro might make him even more susceptible to cracking. You can’t train for one day races and stage races at the same time. It’s very hard to be super competitive at the monuments and the GT’s in the same year.

No need to compare, just enjoy the racing

Excellent video Scott!! Very informative and spot on in your analysis!

With total wins you can't compare them. Merckx rode on average 100 races a year and pogacar 50. So pogacar wins ratio is nearly the same. And in grand tours these era there is often a attacker who wins a mountain stage, and in the time of Merckx it was more like who is the best, wins the stage, so 34 stages in the Tour for pogacar is impossible to achieve.

As Slovenian cycling fan I follow Pogačar from 2017 on and I remember how he was winning in his first season, like Vuelta 2019 where he was beating the best cyclist in the world Roglič on mountains and I was shocked by his last mountain stage attack, he won it by 1min 32s. It was a shocker, I was speechless, to make that in first professional season is unseen! I realistically expect what happened then in TdF time trial 2020. Commentaries may respond that was cheating, doping, but I pretty much expected it according to what happened in 2019. Even more, when that natural phenomenon was exposed in 2020 and Visma terribly lost I fortold cycling would be badly changed from that moment on- cause money dependant and hungry for wins teams will answer to that einstein of cycling in the way we all know. And I was excatly right. I dont claim that Pogačar is different, I dont claim he is clean, on the contrary, dominos have fallen and everyone was forced to answer how to cope with Jonas. But they dont find an answer. Just be aware, if you take time trial advantage of Jonas on Tour 2023 (2min 50s in only 22km) to all rivals (except Pogi) and you convert that advantage to 62 km cyclist used to ride in 90ies, you get 8 minutes advantage to them. If you do the same with Pogi time trial TdF 2020 La Plance des belles filles (36km and 1min and 21s to 2 rivals) and convert it to 62 km you get 2min 20s advantage. Do you see the difference between 8 min and 2min 20s? That was the advantage to first followers/ bunch of best others. You dont believe it, you calculate it yourself!!! I just know how irrational answers i can get, so please please, those few ones who understand what i keep saying you just have empaty how they tried to destroyed this unique talent. Thanks God, Tadej is easy minded, and he doesnt bother too much if he will always lose Tour by 10 minutes to Jonas. Tadej should have 4 Tours at just 24 years. No, Tadej is not Eddy, but he resembles him to you, Cyclingdanes, because you are smart to understand that! To others he is not, as he is way worse than Jonas in TdF. History is written by winners and after some time nobody will care what means they use to make diffenerce today.

Congrats on 40k subs, Scott! 🎉

What again was the scary truth everyone has forgotten? I must have missed it.

What’s the song playing in the background?

Can it be that the comparisons to Eddy Merckx that "everyone has forgotten" (despite the fact that everybody keeps making them) reveal a "scary truth" (and a chilling one at that) because that's the only way to trick somebody into wasting 10 minutes of their life only to hear for a millionth time that these two are compared because they have been winning a lot?

They are different riders but the one thing they both do- once they get a lead their rivals shut down.

Sean king Kelly Raced all year , won TTs Sprints Classics stage races a grand tour . ☘️☘️☘️✌️☘️☘️

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Love the content pal

Great video! Thanks a lot

Amazing riders. Merckx was before my time. Very exciting to be able to follow the path of Tadej's successes. With the current state of cycling's science and technology it's hard to say it's an exact apples to apples comparison, but Merckx achieved his success without those benefits. That said, their passion to compete and win are very similar