Tadej Pogačar is World Champion 🤩🌈 Attacking with 100km to go, the Slovenian completes the triple crown of the Giro, Tour de France and Worlds in one season 👏 #Zurich2024
"If it went wrong, he would have made one of the biggest mistakes in World Championships” - Tadej Pogacar 'only rider' who'd win with 100km attack says Adam Blythe
CyclingMonday, 30 September 2024 at 17:30
Tadej Pogacar fulfilled his ultimate cycling destiny on Sunday afternoon in Zurich, taking his first-ever Rainbow Jersey in style with a 100km attack for one of the greatest victories in World Championships history.
“I think that was like a softener, just to try and get things rolling a little bit,” a stunned Adam Blythe reflected afterwards on Eurosport's coverage of the 2024 World Championships. “There were a few people ill positioned behind, who I think would have been able to follow but they were so far back. He didn’t expect to go at that time, he’s just admitted it, but I don’t think anyone else did."
Although a 100km out attack had the element of surprise, much more than that was needed to ride all the way to victory. “The legs that boy has on him are just exceptional. I don’t think even he realised just how good he was actually feeling," Blythe assesses, admitting that had it gone wrong, the attack could've been viewed a lot less favourably. “It paid off for him, luckily, but he’s probably the only rider in the world that can make a move with 100km to go and win the World Championships. I just cannot believe he went on the attack with 100km to go in the World Championships. Who does that?”
“You have to remember there’s so many riders on top of their game, look at Mathieu van der Poel, Remco Evenepoel, all these riders are aiming for this one win," continues the former British national champion. “He did it and if it went wrong, he would have made one of the biggest mistakes within the World Championships.”
“He’s been making history his whole career but that was some ride. Boy, did he have to work for that, he had to go so, so deep,“ added Matt Stephens, before Dani Rowe concluded the Eurosport analysis. “It was such a spectacle and it really did keep us on the edge of our seats. Tadej Pogacar doing Tadej Pogacar things, going with 100km to go, solo with 51, but he was in so much pain. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Pogacar fight as hard as he did today, he truly turned himself inside out. It was just true class, which we see time and time again from this man.”
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- 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
- If you hold onto then, you blowup in a minute and then you finish 5 minutes down like Ben O'Connorabstractengineer21-12-2024
- Based on what argument?Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Agreed except the length of climbs, pretty sure you can stretch that to about a km unless we’re talking about half a dozen in quick succession.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Lot of contradictory information floating around world cup contenders, someone should do some tidying up.Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- A bit much to suggest that Pogacar is better than MvdP on most terrains. The only terrain Pogacar is clearly better is long climbs, on any other terrain they are pretty even except flat cobbles and short and steep climbs (max a few 100 mtrs) where MvdP is clearly better than Pogacar.Velovibes21-12-2024
- 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
- If you look at how much TP progressed in that 1 1/2 years you can no longer say that’s nothing. If Remco improves as much he’s a challenger!Mistermaumau21-12-2024
- Froome wishing to ride the Vuelta...he won't even be selected for the team!frieders320-12-2024