Veteran French star Romain Bardet has provided a telling analysis of Tadej Pogačar's crushing superiority in the 2024 season, saying that the UAE Team Emirates racer dominated some races so completely that Bardet "knew" beforehand that the Slovenian would win.
Set to retire from road racing next June, Bardet has claimed two podiums and four stage wins in the Tour de France during his career. His most recent success in the Grand Boucle was a stunning two-up stage victory alongside DSM-Firmenich-PostNL teammate Frank van der Broek in Rimini on the opening day of the 2024 race in Rimini.
However, in a lengthy post-season interview with Eurosport, the 34-year-old said that as far back as a Pyrenean stage in the 2020 Tour de France, for the first time, he felt that he had been overhauled by a new generation of climbers.
Bardet added, though, that Pogačar's racing performances in particular demonstrated the Slovenian was currently in a class of his own. When asked about how he viewed Pogačar's runaway success in 2024, all the Frenchman could say was that the UAE champion had moved even further away from the rest of the field.
Using a phrase from boxing to express the difference between Pogačar and the remainder of the peloton, Bardet said "It's just not in the same weight category.
"I'm surprised, but at the same time, he's exploited all the immense potential that we already saw in him from beginning to end [of the season]."
Bardet said that while he had seen signs of Pogačar's brilliance during his first two Tour de France – which the Slovenian had won "on pure class" – now those kinds of exceptional performances stretched from February to October.
"He's so superior, it's hard to explain," Bardet added. "I don't spend a lot of time looking for explanations. Even as a contemporary and as part of the racing community, you get the feeling you're not even one of his rivals."
Bardet agreed wholeheartedly with the interviewer that he had taken part in some races where he was absolutely certain beforehand that Pogačar would win.
"There were several, but off the top of my head: Strade Bianche, the GP Montréal and the World Championships. I was utterly convinced that barring a mechanical incident, or something along those lines, it was already decided."
A pro since 2012, Bardet had never felt that feeling before, he said, pointing at Pogačar's team as – previously – one of the causes of a "certain vulnerability." That changed in 2024, however, "even in the Tour de France, if you saw UAE mixing it up at the front of the peloton to keep the break under control, he [Pogačar] would win the stage afterwards," Bardet said.
"The same thing happened in the Giro d'Italia. It happened at least 10 times this season."
Bardet witnessed Pogačar's domination firsthand in many races this season. Those included both the Giro and Tour but also Liège-Bastogne-Liege, where the Frenchman finished second behind the Slovenian (his narrowest defeat by Pogačar, although the winning gap was in fact, considerable) and the Worlds, where he claimed 10th.
These relentless series of successes for the UAE leader comes hard on the heels of Visma-Lease a Bike's overwhelming superiority in the Grand Tours in 2023, creating what Bardet agreed was a degree of frustration elsewhere in the peloton about how a very limited number of teams are currently taking a large proportion of the victories on offer.
Outside those squads, it was inevitable, Bardet said, that when "you have six guys working for you and you end up finishing in sixth or seventh place, you ask yourself questions [like]: do I have the level?"
"It's a result of the direction road cycling has taken where the talents and the highest salaries are concentrated in a handful of squads," he said, before warning, "We're heading towards a cycling where the interest at a competitive level is considerably reduced."
Bardet recognised that it was difficult to find the right balance between talking like a 'former top rider' of the sport who was looking for excuses for his or her failure to be in the thick of the action any more, and being aware of an all-around hike in performance levels.
But if he had to put a date on when he realised that the sport was moving ahead of him for whatever reason, for Bardet the Pyrenean stage which finished in Laruns in the 2020 Tour was where it happened. (Coincidentally or not, that stage was the first one that Pogačar won in the Tour de France, finishing the fastest in a sprint of five. Bardet took eighth, 11 seconds behind, in a second chase group.)
"It was the first day where I felt overhauled in the mountains. I won't say that I was never dropped before; that has happened a lot. But on that stage, I was on a good day and I really felt there was a significant difference with the very best."
"I got the feeling that when they went for it, it was going really fast. I've experienced [former multiple Tour de France winner] Froome's accelerations, but that was less impressive, even so."
While cycling in general and Pogačar, in particular, have moved onwards and upwards, on a personal front, Bardet will not return to the Tour de France again, with his retirement date from road racing set for June 15 2025 at the end of the Critérium du Dauphiné.
However, his win in Rimini this summer in the Tour at the end of a 50km breakaway in the teeth of the peloton – one which also saw him lead the race for a day – will remain the ideal way to round out his career in the sport's top event.
"It was a little bit like the dream scenario but it wasn't really a surprise," Bardet told Eurosport. "The result was exceptional in itself, but it formed part of my approach, the plan I had made for the first weekend."
"With the resources I had, I felt very ambitious about that opening weekend, because I knew it was the ideal scenario for me. But to be able to put it all into practice, and that everything came together for it to happen wasn't really under my control. It was a happy coincidence."
