"He's so full of charisma and that joy he brings it makes it an absolute spectacle" - Tadej Pogacar's dominance far from boring according to Bob Roll

Tadej Pogacar had a season from the heavens in 2024. Everything the Slovenian leader of UAE Team Emirates touched turned to gold. For some though, this suffocating dominance Pogacar held over the peloton made the racing boring. In experienced American expert Bob Roll's opinion though, this criticism is way off base.

"If it was anyone else in the pro peloton, it could have gotten a little monotonous," Roll, himself a a three-time Tour de France competitor in the 80s, analyses on the latest episode of NBC Sports Cycling's Beyond the Podium podcast. "But for me, he's so full of charisma and that joy he brings makes it, for everybody, an absolute spectacle."

Across the course of 2024, Pogacar claimed numerous notable and memorable victories including Strade Bianche, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Il Lombardia, the Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the men's elite World Championship road race in Zurich. "It was a spectacular season that he had, but with anyone else, can you imagine the same amount of enthusiasm people generally have for what Tadej did this season?" Roll asks co-host and compatriot Christian Vande Velde.

"You're not wrong!" Vande Velde answers with a smile. "He IPogacar ed.) could easily have sat back and let the UAE Team Emirates train just go and steamroll every stage, making it just so boring, but he's attacking full gas and risking everything. Like on the descents! How fast does he rip those descents? The motorcycles can't even keep up with him."

"What he did four days into the Tour de France this year was just nuts," Vande Velde recalls, having had the unique perspective of being on the back of one of the camera bikes. "I was so glad that I was so far ahead of him that I didn't have to risk our lives staying ahead of him!"