"Pog is on G.O.A.T status" - Geraint Thomas puts Tadej Pogacar on a par with legendary Eddy Merckx
Cycling
After another incredible performance from Tadej Pogacar last weekend saw the Slovenian romp to victory at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, praise has been flying in from all parts. One of those who sees Pogacar's brilliance first hand is INEOS Grenadiers leader, Geraint Thomas.
On the latest episode of their 'Watts Occurring' podcast, Thomas, alongside teammate and compatriot, Luke Rowe compare just how highly on the pantheon of cycling greats, Pogacar should be positioned. For Thomas, who will compete against the UAE Team Emirates leader for the Maglia Rosa at the upcoming Giro d'Italia, it's on a par with the legendary Eddy Merckx.
"I reckon so yeah. To be fair though, I've never seen Merckx race, I've just seen his wins, his palmares," explains the former Tour de France winner. "Pog is just on G.O.A.T (Greatest Of All Time ed.) status I would say."
"He's in that category and been in there a couple of years but to be in that level of 'God Tier' riders he's got to do it for a few more years if we're going to put him on the same shelf or similar shelf as Merckx," Rowe responds. "I think Merckx just won almost everything he rode all year round and Pogi pretty much does the same. He's got 10 days of racing that he's done with 6 wins, it is outrageous. And the pedigree of them wins, they aren't 'Mickey Mouse Races'. He turns up to big races, wins and thanks for coming, goes home."
What do you think? Is Pogacar already in that category of cycling greats like Merckx or does he still have a way to go? Let us know your thoughts!
Why comparing riders between one era to another? This sounds exactly like when people declaring Messi as "G.O.A.T" because they seeing him play. The sport's greats from different eras cannot be compared to each other.
There is a dfference between emotional comparison (seeing him play) and rational, being able to put a palmarès into context and nuancing. Why? The whole point is it provokes and stimulates the spread of knowledge (to those interested in it). Unfortunately thanks to internet we now see how excruciatingly large the proportionof the population is that has no interest in learning but just wants to state its opinion without ever questioning how relevant it is or where they derived it from. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion, any opinion on anything but if you can’t back it up or explain where you got it from, it loses all validity except for maybe sociologists, the incurably curious and anyone working in marketing, big data or misinformation.
Yeah. I agree completely on this. Glad I'm not joining on the Messi hype train, most people calling him "GOAT" simple because they saw him play and because he is famous. This will happen in cycling in the next few yrs, sadly. Oh! Messi fans are ironically rude, so talking facts with them is nearly impossible
Sorry but it’s exactly the same with CR fans and most to blame are the media because today’s media is 10x more competitive than sport, everyone needs to find a way to stop people’s 5 second attention going elsewhere and so real discussion has lost its importance. Think about the way a very average unoriginal singer has become the biggest media star (outtrumping Trump, putting Putin back in his place, ensuring Netanyahu is not on Yahoo, making Boris borish, placing Musk in the dusk, and making Richie Rishi look poor. You may never have heard the music but it’s practically impossible to ignore the name, each media looking for some way to join the hype (as much as possible from their perspective) to make sure they don’t lose out on whatever they’re afraid of, and each just contributes to hyping hype to hyperlevels without ever asking, what happens in the end or even going back to basic questions like how did we get here in the first place. Like bubbles on the stock market.
CR7 fans are not that bad. At least from my experience anyway. Messi fans probadly the worse of the two. Tougher talking facts with Messi fans than CR7 fans. Seen so many sport news covering MLS, which is nobody ask for, it's utter garbage league, yet people calling him "GOAT" because he won a WC. CR7 fans are funny, so long they don't insult you, same with Messi fans. I don't get why Messi is so popular, eventhough I find him look like a "villain" type of athelete. Remco, ironically gave similar vibe. I would not go near CR7 fans and Messi fans without a 15 foot pole. BETTER SAFE THAN SORRY, excuse the caps😂
Well, I don’t know which language based fans you’ve followed but I wouldn’t consider English forums as being representative of typical fans. Why you mention MLS I don’t know, nobody cares about their GOAT competition since he moved West and CR East, best place for them, almost out of sight and out of mind :-) You can’t move the goalposts. Before the WC, the main argument against Messi was that he’d never won anything major with his country whilst CRs side were argueing he must be better cause they had. Messi was more popular because people needed someone to be anti-CR, who doesn’t exactly have the best character either, like a Mourinho who can’t speak.
Yes, he is up there in the top five of all time greats.
Top 5, probably top 3 but no way he is Merckx yet. Very broadly, Merckx matured a BIT later but at Tadej’s age they had a pretty similar palmares, it is only from then on that Merckx started cannabalising. Please check for exact numbers but he did like 3 Monuments a year 4 times, GT doubles 4 times (once with WC) 1971 (about Pogis age) he won TdF, 3 monuments, 5 stage races with 54 from 120 racing days (45%), plus a six day track event. With Giro & TdF Pogi might reach half that this year but even to stay at 45% for half of 120, he’ll have to win almost half of all Giro and TdF stages. 4 consecutive years of winning about 40% of about 130 days each year, sorry but Pogi is on holiday in comparison. As to rivals, there were Janssen, Gimondi, Poulidor, Ocaña, De Vlaeminck, Zoetemelk, Thevenet, if you check out their Palmares, it’s not exactly as if it was easy to win back then, certainly the level was always higher than this year’s Giro bar any new young revelation. And, had it not been for « the punch » in the 75 TdF, who knows how much longer he’d have stayed motivated. Another fact people rarely remember, when he did the Vuelta Giro double the dates were not as these days, there was a 4 day gap between the two which basically meant 40 days of racing.
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