"After this spring, Tadej Pogacar is the best cyclist of all time" - Roxane Knetemann

The comparisons between Eddy Merckx and Tadej Pogacar have been ongoing for a few years, but they have definitely scaled up in 2025 with the addition of more titles to his palmarès and a Paris-Roubaix debut that left fans with a lot of expectations for the future.

"After this spring, Tadej Pogacar is the best cyclist of all time," Roxane Knetemann argued in a column for De Stelling. "Why do we have to give him that title? What Pogacar is doing at the moment is extraordinary and abnormally good".

"I do not believe that another rider like him will emerge in the short term. I do not think that you can ever say that one is better than the other. Especially when there is so much time between two generations."

At the time being, the Slovenian is preparing for the Criterium du Dauphiné and later on the Tour de France at altitude in Sierra Nevada. Over the past few weeks, the other two big candidates for the Grand Boucle's victory, Jonas Vingegaard and Remco Evenepoel, have also spent time in the Spanish mountain.

However in the spring, Pogacar was racing all over Europe in the classics, achieving victories at Strade Bianche, Tour of Flanders Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, whilst achieving podiums in all the other races he's participated in. "It is quite special that there is finally a rider who can surpass Merckx's palmarès. But by comparing the two you are actually doing them both an injustice."

"Merckx has of course also been made very big. He has become a household name over the years. Maybe because my father raced against Merckx, he is less of a hero of mine. For me that was actually quite normal." Surprisingly, Pogacar has never won the Dauphiné in the past, and so in the upcoming weeks can make his list of victories even richer, but he will most likely face a Vingegaard at a high level in a mountainous route.