OPINION - Is Tadej Pogacar the greatest athlete in sports history?

There are performances that win races, and others that reshape how we see an athlete. What Tadej Pogacar did on the Tourmalet belongs clearly to the second group. It was not just a stage win at the Tour de France. It was such an overwhelming show of superiority that it forces a question that goes beyond cycling: are we watching the best athlete on the planet? And, if we stretch the debate further, can he already enter the conversation about the greatest athlete of all time?

The Tour de France, barring a major surprise, looks virtually decided. Jonas Vingegaard, the only rider in recent years able to challenge the Slovenian’s hegemony, no longer seems at his level. He held on reasonably well on the Tourmalet, but then again exposed his shortcomings versus Pogacar elsewhere: he lost more time on the descent and across the flatter, faster section of the stage. That is precisely the big shift we are witnessing.

We are no longer talking only about the best climber in the world. Nor merely the best Classics rider. We are talking about a cyclist who commands almost every facet of the sport. He climbs better than anyone, descends better than his direct rivals, cruises the flats with extraordinary power and, on top of that, keeps an explosiveness and endurance ability that very few can match. Not even riders with exceptional changes of pace can hold his wheel when he decides to accelerate.

That turns any race into an exercise in survival for the rest.

It is true that Mathieu van der Poel can still challenge him at certain Monuments, especially those that are less physically selective, and that Paris-Roubaix remains a race where the Dutchman starts with an edge. But even there Pogacar has already shown he can go toe to toe. In almost any other setting, the outright favourite bears his name.

That is why the debate ceases to belong exclusively to cycling.

Across today’s sporting landscape it is hard to find a comparable level of dominance. In Football we are no longer watching Messi at his peak. In Basketball LeBron James remains a legend, but no longer in full athletic prime. In Tennis, Carlos Alcaraz and Jannik Sinner share a superb rivalry precisely because neither clearly imposes himself over the other. In Formula 1, even the most dominant champions have always depended in part on the car they drive.

Pogacar, however, gives the sense of being superior in and of himself.

That is extraordinarily hard to achieve in modern sport, where physical, technological and scientific parity among the best teams grows tighter each year.

The next question is even tougher: could he be the greatest athlete in history?

A blunt answer would be a mistake. Comparing eras is always unfair. Contexts change, preparation evolves, and sports transform. It makes little sense to measure Eddy Merckx, Michael Jordan, Lionel Messi, Michael Phelps or Novak Djokovic with the same yardstick.

But it does make sense to include Pogacar in that conversation.

Because even within cycling he is doing things that are hard to find in any era. Merckx amassed a palmarès that is probably unreachable, but even he found rivals who could challenge him in the mountains or beat him in the Tour de France. Pogacar, by contrast, is reaching a level of all-round superiority that is hard to recall.

There is also another aspect that often goes unnoticed.

Great athletes usually need years to build their definitive reign. Michael Jordan suffered before conquering the NBA. Other champions also needed a long learning curve before dominating their disciplines.

Pogacar won the Tour de France at a very young age. He then lost two editions to Jonas Vingegaard. Far from crumbling, he returned an even more complete rider, to the point of turning his greatest rival into a clearly inferior cyclist; whilst almost everyone in the sport has gone out of reach to even challenge him.

That process of evolution speaks volumes about his greatness.

We are not talking about a champion who exploited a weak generation. We are talking about an athlete who was beaten by an exceptional rival and responded by raising his level even further, transforming the rivalry into a new hegemony.

Perhaps in ten years we will be able to answer that big question with more perspective. Perhaps by then we will know whether he truly was the greatest athlete of all time.

What does seem indisputable today is something much simpler: we are witnessing one of the greatest displays of dominance modern sport has offered. And that, regardless of where he ultimately sits in history, makes Tadej Pogacar a privilege for any sports fan.