"He's just riding his bike at a totally different level" - Tadej Pogacar gets nothing but praise from former pros Jens Voigt and Bobby Julich
Cycling
Tadej Pogacar has achieved history this year with a season unlike anything else in modern cycling. Two Grand Tour victories with 12 stage wins collected amongst them, the World Championships road race, two monument victories and still much more; the UAE Team Emirates rider has done what was believed to be unthinkable. He is praised by two riders who have been part of the same peloton.
"Let's just say cycling changes at the drop of a hat. You could have a season like he had this year, and next year not nearly as good. Hopefully he will be healthy, hopefully he will not have any crashes, but there is no way at this moment to keep him from winning at least a quarter of the race he's entering," Bobby Julich said in the Odd Tandem podcast. "He's just riding his bike at a totally different level. Its going to be very interesting but I'm sure he's not going to have any issues with the curse of the rainbow jersey next year".
The rainbow jersey curse could in theory have been thrown out the window already, taking into consideration the Slovenian absolutely dominated the competition in both races he's taken part in with his new jersey. Pogacar ended the 2024 season the same way he started it, with a victory in Italy carrying minutes over the competition. Next year we do not know whether he is able to repeat such extreme success but surely he will not have the pressure to do it, whilst his main goals will likely lie in the Milano-Sanremo/Tour of Flanders double; Tour de France and World Championships again which will take place in a hilly course in Kigali.
"Definitely no curse of the rainbow jersey for him, and I'm a big fan of Tadej Pogacar," Jens Voigt agrees. "But after a year like this where everything did fall in line for him, he achieved history make the 'Grand Slam' of cycling with the Giro, Tour and the Worlds. It would be almost impossible to repeat it, have another 25 wins like that," the former German pro argues. However he does not doubt that Pogacar is likely to continue being a dominant figure in the sport. "He wins anything between 10 and 15 races for sure, but again 25 - and I wish the best for him - but to have another season like that would be almost unheard of. But I'm sure he will be spectacular, he will great, and easily win 10 to 15 races next year".
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- Ahhh..... you have to understand the "strange" diversity concepts of the BBCslappers6621-12-2024
- Avoiding him is a good strategy, you get more wins and then you can compete in the TDF relatively relaxed. Pit yourself against Pogi and not only there will be no wins, it will be considerable mental setbackabstractengineer21-12-2024
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- Based on what argument?Mistermaumau21-12-2024
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- The likelihood of RE improving enough at this point to outclass TP or JV is less than zero.verve82521-12-2024
- That’s the most stupid thing I’ve read for a long time, did you not go to school and learn even the most basic physics? Aero depends on one thing only, drag, drag depends speed and the relationship is squared and apart from maybe at zero or the speed of sound or due to side winds that relationship is valid at all speeds, it dies not “suddenly” start at a magic number. Very simply, the faster you go the more the effect becomes important. If you think 25km/h is needed to have noticeable effects you’re delusional, athletic WR are cancelled as soon as winds top 2m/s that’s 7.2km/h, why because the assistance is already too important at that speed and the times prove it. You don’t even consider wind which can significantly increase the effective speed for aerodynamics and you underestimate speed of climbs, 6% is ridden more at 30 than 25km/h, a speed at which early generation high rims were considered to have more advantages than disadvantages. And finally, as in normal races you can’t just switch bikes according to terrain, it’s pretty pointless to discuss climbs as a separate situation, the aero will have justified itself plenty during the rest of the ride.Mistermaumau21-12-2024