Belgian cyclist Eddy Merckx, the greatest cyclist of all time, hailed Tadej Pogacar as the current dominator of the peloton on his 80th birthday. He confessed that what he likes most about the Slovenian is that he always goes out to win, and challenged him to try to beat the hour record, like “the cannibal.”
“What I like about Pogacar is that he really tries to win, he never holds back. He goes for the win, and that’s nice. Sometimes he reminds me of what I was trying to achieve,” Merckx said in an interview published Tuesday by the newspaper Le Soir. The UAE rider, who at 26 has already won the Tour de France three times, the Giro d’Italia another time, and the world road race championship, is for Merckx “the man to beat,” ahead of Denmark’s Jonas Vingegaard, a two-time Tour de France champion, and Belgian Remco Evenepoel, a two-time Olympic and world champion in the road race and time trial, and winner of a Vuelta a España.
“For me, Pogacar is clearly the man to beat. What I saw in the spring was impressive. I hope Vingegaard is better than he was at the beginning of the year. He wasn’t in great shape before his crash in Paris-Nice. And Remco, who hasn’t raced much due to his accident in December, may have some reserves and freshness. But in the high mountains, keeping up with the world champion won’t be easy,” he analyzed. They are riders from another era, operating in a much more professionalized cycling style than the one Merckx experienced between 1965 and 1979, when travel was usually done by car or van, never by official bus, and there were days when the Tour de France included up to three half-stage races.
“Today, the means have evolved, but in our time, it was like that,” says Merckx, who can’t say if he would have been a cyclist today. He would have been burdened, he says, by the high-altitude training and the “tedious” long training camps, which didn’t exist when “the cannibal” battled Felice Gimondi, Luis Ocaña, Bernard Thévenet, Roger De Vlaeminck, and the charismatic Kas team.
A Cycling of Another Era
Cycling today is also more calculating than in those days when mountains were climbed in black and white frames, a natural evolution resulting from the passing of decades that means it’s now possible to win the general classification of a Grand Tour without winning a single stage. “Cycling changes; racing and winning are done differently. It’s also respectable, but it’s not the same style. This more strategic vision illustrates the evolution of the sport,” he explains.
That’s why Merckx, who watches “virtually all” televised cycling, admires Pogacar, because the Slovenian attacks more than he calculates. And he challenges the Slovenian and his generational peers to emulate Merckx himself and other great cycling champions and attempt to break the hour record, like “the cannibal” in 1972, during a tremendous season in which he racked up 50 victories.
“The hour record was a goal. My career wouldn’t be complete without it. At the end of ’72, I was feeling a little tired, I wasn’t in shape, but after weeks of specific preparation in Italy, I recovered. We crossed the Atlantic to Mexico. Everything went well (49.431 km). But I suffered a lot. After that effort, I could barely walk for a week,” he recalls. Among the current champions, he doesn’t know whether Pogacar or Evenepoel would be closer to the hour record. “The Slovenian is the best, the most complete. And Remco has incredible aerodynamics. It would be great if they dared to take on that challenge,” he concludes.
Source: Agencia EFE