"He didn't even have to get up to attack" - Armstrong and Bruyneel on Tadej Pogacar's unrivalled Liège victory

Lance Armstrong and Johan Bruyneel analyzed on 'The Move' podcast the events of Sunday's Liège-Bastogne-Liège, which ended with an uncontested victory for Tadej Pogacar. For them, there was no match for the World Champion in what is the final of the spring classics.

First of all, they recalled in data that the last 3 years of the great classics have almost all been won by Pogacar himself, Mathieu van der Poel and Remco Evenepoel in something that is undoubtedly historical:

"In the last 3 years, of the 24 major one-day races contested, 21 have been won by 3 riders, Pogacar has won 9, Remco has won 4 and Van der Poel, 8. The exceptions are Mohoric and Philipsen Milano - Sanremo and Dylan Van Baarle the Paris-Roubaix. Beyond that these 3 riders have won every major race in the last 3 years."

Lance Armstrong no longer knows how to describe Pogacar's superiority over his rivals, so he uses other sports to put the Slovenian's barbaric performance at La Redoute into context: "It's not just these performances that are repetitive. It is what it is. Tadej Pogacar is not going to let others win, he's not going to wait any longer in the race to attack. Tadej is going to do Tadej's things".

"We can compare this with other sports. You have for example the London Marathon. Here are the cyclists of the world. In the London Marathon are the best marathoners in the world. This is the equivalent of winning the London Marathon by one minute. This is the equivalent of winning the Augusta Masters by 15 strokes. These are things you don't see. They are the best in the world. And every other week he does it."

Johan Bruyneel, for his part, analyzed what the Slovenian did even though some thought Evenepoel could be a contender: "I think it's more unique than any other sport in the sense that we have a guy like Pogacar who is the world champion. He's the world number 1 and he wins on all terrains and we all know how different some races are from others. In Liège he was the big favorite although it was said that Remco could match him because he was able to catch Pogacar in Amstel, but you saw a different Pogacar, a fully recovered Pogacar from Flanders and Roubaix".

"We had a test in the Flèche Wallonne and in this race he showed another level. He attacked where he wanted to. Normally in La Redoute you go behind and attack at the last moment two or three hundred meters from the top, and he went almost a kilometer and nobody was able to react. It was impressive to see that he didn't even have to get up once."

"It's crazy to see how dominant he is to anticipate the plan, because he still had teammates, he heard on the radio that Remco was behind and that motivated him to attack. I think that's a smart move. How frustrating it must be for the rest of the peloton to know that in these races Pogacar is in top form," said the Belgian.