Lance Armstrong has been one of those who during the
Tour de France has jumped on the bandwagon of the wave of criticism towards
Tadej Pogacar for being "greedy". However, the American has finally capitulated to the Slovenian after his latest Tour de France triumphs and has no doubt that he already has a place in cycling history.
"He's generational talent, we can say he's one of the top 3 cyclists of all time." He was thoroughly impressed with the time trial that closed the race in Nice on Sunday, making it clear on his podcast The Move who the strongest riders were in a historic race:
"I like to call the time-trials the race of truth and Tadej Pogacar has represented the yellow jersey, it seems with one leg, winning by one minute, taking a lot of risks, like everyone else. The other fact of this time trial is that the top 3 of the podium ended up occupying the first 3 positions in the TT. That speaks for how tough it was".
Johan Bruyneel, Armstrong's former sports director at US Postal and current commentator on his podcast, dropped some colorful facts about how historic the 2024 Tour de France has been:
"All the records have been broken, all of them, on all the climbs, and not just by the first one, sometimes by the first 3, sometimes even by the 7 or 8 and I think it's a dynamic that's going to continue, everyone is getting better."
He wanted to highlight, in addition to Tadej Pogacar himself, the great team of
UAE Team Emirates with riders like Joao Almeida or Adam Yates performing at a sublime level:
"He has riders who have been podiums in grand tours like Almeida and Yates supporting him, First, fourth and sixth I think is a great result, in all the mountain stages, especially in the last 3 mountain stages they were very dominant compared to his big rivals, Visma. He had the best team and was the best rider, what can you do against that? 6 stages winning the Tour with more than 6 minutes with the second, and he could have had 7 or 8 ahead if he had pushed harder in some moments."