This feature originally appeared in Cycling Weekly magazine on 5th December 2024. Subscribe now and never miss an issue.
Where to even start with Tadej Pogačar’s remarkable year. The breadth of the 26-year-old’s achievements in 2024 speaks for itself, and forever underscores his unparalleled, era-defining greatness. We may never see the like of it again.
Among the spoils he has taken during his epoch of supreme dominance, three particular victories stand above the rest. Pogačar combined a debut Giro d’Italia victory, a third Tour de France yellow jersey and the road world title to become the first man since Stephen Roche in 1987 to etch cycling’s hallowed triple crown onto his palmarès.
Eddy Merckx is the only other man to achieve such a feat, with Annemiek van Vleuten being the only woman to do so. They are two of the sport’s greatest ever riders, and now Pogačar has confirmed his place in the pantheon alongside them. In total, the Slovenian won 25 races across 58 days of competition this year, dominating across a staggering variety of courses.
Not only did he continue to demonstrate his prowess in Grand Tours and smaller stage races, he also continued to decimate the field at a variety of one-day affairs, launching long-range attacks to blast away from the competition at Strade Bianche, Liège–Bastogne–Liège and the GP Montréal.
Long solo breaks aren’t unusual in modern cycling, but the Slovenian has made them his bread and butter. He kicked off his season in March by launching his race-winning acceleration 80km out from Strade Bianche’s finish in Siena’s Piazza del Campo. And he ended his campaign as he’d begun it, with a 48km solo move to take a fourth straight Il Lombardia victory in October. Prior to Lombardia came his crowning moment, his pièce de résistance, the road world title.
Pogačar claimed the rainbow bands in Zurich after a 51km solo raid following an audacious initial attack 100km out, which initially left viewers questioning whether this time he had miscalculated.
Watching with friends in Mallorca, Sean Kelly was among the doubters. "Well, I’ll put my hand up," said the Irishman. "I said maybe he's getting a bit too bold now and doing it that bit too early so he might just pay for this one. But then three hours later, we saw that there was no question he was in control." Briefly aided by Pavel Sivakov, his French colleague on UAE Emirates, Pogačar soon lit the afterburners and was gone.
"What can you do against that?" asked Kelly, rhetorically. "There's nothing. People have tried, but after a kilometre there was just a huge explosion and they have blown up. Riders have said that they made a mistake in trying to follow him – they know they're not going to be able to match it when he goes."
Pogačar’s dominance has roused a cacophony from pundits speculating that he will be the man to take Eddy Merckx’s crown as cycling’s greatest ever rider. The comparison does not seem to faze UAE’s superstar in the slightest.
"He doesn't seem to feel the pressure at all," Kelly noted. "He just gets on with his business. He's at the age now where he's coming into his prime and has shown this year that he's in his best years. When you get to 26 to 30, you’re coming into your best years as a cyclist." Kelly believes that Pogačar’s ability to shut himself off from the outside chatter and get on with the job is a major advantage that sets him apart from his rivals.
So what now for Pogačar? Where does he go next year, and how can he shake off the omnipresent comparison to Merckx?
"The Tour and Vuelta [double] could be the one next year," Kelly surmised. "But the team won’t want him doing too many races too early. The problem is, whatever the race, he wants to win."
As problems go, it’s a nice one to have – and Kelly conceded that much will depend on whether Pogačar decides to centre the latter part of his 2025 season around the Rwanda World Championships in September. "No matter what it is, he just wants to win," concluded Kelly. "That's just the type of racer he is."
