An Italian cycling legend explains argues Tadej Pogacar may be better than Eddy Merckx: "Eddy arrived at the finish line exhausted, Tadej looks like he just came from training"

Cycling
Thursday, 14 November 2024 at 10:34
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Francesco Moser was a beastly cyclist who won, among many other things, 22 stages in the Giro d'Italia, the World Championships and 3 Paris-Roubaix. At the beginning of his career he coincided with Eddy Mercxk and now he wanted to compare him with Tadej Pogacar, with all that that implies.
The Italian cycling legend, who won the Giro in 1984, commented on the microphones of Il Mattino why he thinks the Slovenian is even better than the Belgian 'Cannibal': "I raced with Merckx, and he was strong. He had a very strong team to prepare the attacks, just like Pogacar has, but for me Pogacar wins more easily than Merckx. You see him coming in as if he was just out training, whereas Merckx was coming in beaten."
Of course, Moser is clear that it is always impossible to compare between eras and that it is completely impossible to determine who is really the best:
"It's hard to make these comparisons. It's hard to say because we will never have the definitive proof. So let's look at what is there today; we used to look at what we were doing, but comparisons from a distance are impossible."
However, he is very clear that cycling has changed a lot from his time to the present and that it has become extremely professionalized. Curious what he says about the material that the domestiques and the leaders received in his time and how it is completely different today:
"Today they race this way and it's more complicated to impose. Even Pogacar's rivals have the same as him; today the WorldTour teams spend millions of euros and can't afford to lose a race. When we raced, we gave the used tires to the domestiques and we, the captains, used the new ones, because we had to save money. Now, on the other hand, everyone has the best of the best".

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