Former pros bored with Tadej Pogacar's dominance: "I'm sick of always having the same guy win"

Speaking to EFE before the Titant Desert in Morocco, the riders Luis Angel Maté (Cofidis, Euskaltel) and Andrey Amador (Movistar, INEOS, EF) have criticized the extreme professionalisation of cycling today, that, according to them, makes everything more predictable and boring.  

Maté, who hung up his bike after the Vuelta a España in 2024, directly mentioned the name of Tadej Pogacar to make clear his opinion on the lack of excitement in the races because the watts riders produce in training make it clear who is going to win a given race:

"I'm sick of running with Pogacar and having the same guy win every time. You see the watts they move and you know the result. Seeing the watts each one moves, you know who's going to win."

He then goes further by talking about cycling as a 'mechanized activity that moves it away from its romantic origins of the Coppi and Bartali era:

"A mechanized activity, where everything is technical, which allows exhibitions like those of Pogacar and Van der Poel. These demonstrations take cycling away from its origins. It used to be the romantic sport of Coppi and Bartali, close to the people.

"Cycling is the sport of the people and we cannot move away from it. With so much tech and control, we have lost contact with the people."

He says that now that he is racing other types of events, he is falling in love with cycling again because he doesn't have to keep an eye on the watts, "Now I get together with different people, with another cycling, cycling is not just watts, and I want to recover the origins of cycling with people who have the same concerns. I always say that cycling will change the world."

Andrey Amador, for his part, also makes it clear that he does not like the current state of cycling, from which he retired a few months ago for reasons that he explains clearly below.

"Cycling is becoming too professionalized and the cyclist is distancing himself from the public. Before I felt like a machine, I always did the same thing, I didn't enjoy cycling, the fact of being able to stop for a coffee..."

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