"It makes me sick sometimes" - Belgian legend believes hype surrounding Tadej Pogacar's Paris-Roubaix start highlights everything wrong with modern cycling
CyclingSaturday, 29 March 2025 at 16:33
After months of speculation, the official announcement came from UAE Team Emirates - XRG earlier this week. Tadej Pogacar will ride Paris-Roubaix for the first time in his illustrious career in 2025. Ever since, the cycling world has been sent into a frenzy by thought of the reigning Tour de France champion competing on the iconic cobbles, but for one legendary figure of the sport, the hype is a little overblown.
"I think it’s all quite normal," says the now-77-year-old Belgian icon, Roger De Vlaeminck, himself a four-time winner of Paris-Roubaix back in the 70s. According to De Vlaeminck, Pogacar's decision to skip his initially planned appearances at the E3 Saxo Classic and Gent Wevelgem in order to focus on Paris-Roubaix, only goes to show the stark difference between the riders of his generation and those competing in the current peloton.
"In our time, we rode all the races, didn’t we? I raced at least 120 events, about 15 cyclo-cross races, and some six-day races," explains the legendary figure in conversation with Sporza. "I personally won Tirreno-Adriatico six times and Milan-Sanremo three times during those years. Why couldn’t that happen now? Do the riders now fear burning out too quickly? Have I burned out, maybe?"
"What’s going on with these riders? They earn so much more money, but they shouldn’t say it’s too much of a burden," continues De Vlaeminck with frustration, citing the recent edition of Milano-Sanremo as another example of the differences between yesteryear and today. "Mathieu van der Poel wins Milano-Sanremo, but he was in the peloton for 250 kilometres, right? And Filippo Ganna got dropped three times and came back because the others slowed down. Now, with Ganna, you have one Italian at the top level, and he’s not a superhero. In my time, there were ten Italians at the very top."
"Write this down properly," De Vlaeminck adds. "The riders don’t make the choices; it’s the bosses around them who do. We raced everything. Can you win 512 races like I did in this day and age? Why not? Of course not, if you only race 400. We made a good living too, but we had to race a lot of events to earn it. It makes me sick sometimes."
Finally, there has been a lot of comparisons drawn between Pogacar and the great Eddy Merckx over the last couple of years. According to De Vlaeminck, who race against Merckx during his own career, the current world champion should consider himself lucky to have been born in a different generation to the legendary 'Cannibal'. "Man, I know how fast Eddy could ride," concludes the 77-year-old. "I’ve often ridden behind him with fear."
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There is a lot of wisdom in some of our older people and some have the wisdom to use it wisely. Others not so much.......
I loved De Vlaeminck back in the day, but I have to agree with him: he probably is a little burned out. I don't see him winning much this year.
Tadej is 26 year old, Mr. Sour. And now, as you said, because the money, the cycling is extremely professionalized and competitive: winning is very hard, even for very talented riders.
How many grand tours did Vlaeminck enter/finish let alone win? This article gives "old man yells at cloud" vibes
This guy lives his live in the past, must be fun for his grandkids.
The level of competition in every sport is so very much higher than it was in the 70s (I'm old enough to remember), and that's fine. You compete against the people you compete against. You win the race you're in, not a race of the past or of the future. Are there any world records from the 70s? Very few, I suspect. The way people train these days, the way they race these days, it's just different. And I am comfortable assuming the following: today's riders are faster and stronger than those of the past. It's a different profession, it's more professional, and that's fine. So is every sport. What de Vlaeminck did was totally amazing in his time, but in this era not only is it not needed (people earn enough without bonuses), it's also not enough (training prepares you for racing more than racing does). Eras change. It's okay. Who knows where we will be in another 50 years.
Well said. It’s tough to compare across eras
It’s also no longer allowed. It was crazy back then, almost 200 race days in a year sometimes.
Gotta ask you Roger how much did you get paid back then? Not what they do now that is why they race less.