Tadej Pogacar is ‘incredibly scary prospect’ for every rider after Tour of Flanders win – Dan Lloyd

The Slovenian dethroned Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Deceuninck) with a sensational solo attack as he added yet another title to his already ridiculous palmarès.

Despite only being 24, Pogacar has won two Tour de France titles, 12 Grand Tour stages and multiple Monuments: Liege–Bastogne–Liege (2021), Giro di Lombardia (2021 and 2022) and Flanders. Only Belgian great Eddy Merckx has won three different Monuments before the age of 25.

Pogacar outclassed cobble specialists Van der Poel and Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) to win in Flanders, a feat made more impressive given his main goal is reclaiming his Tour title from Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma) later this summer.

And after his latest win on the Flemish cobblestones, The Breakaway gang lauded Pogacar’s incredible versatility.

“I think the scary thing for everybody else is that it looks like he’s still improving,” said Lloyd.

“That would be normal for a normal 24-year-old, that you’ve still got room for improvement through to 26-28, whatever your peak is.

“But you just thought of Pogacar given how good he was, maybe he was an early developer and he had already peaked at the age of 23.

“But if he is still improving, and there is still room to move that ceiling up, it’s an incredibly scary prospect for every specialist in cycling because he’s showing he can do it on every type of race.”

Adam Blythe explained why Pogacar’s twin talents for Classics and Grand Tours was so rare.

“A Tour de France rider, especially a GC rider who is winning, they are a lot lighter, they don’t have as much muscle mass, they don’t have to be as explosive,” he said.

“So that short-term power on short climbs, they generally don’t have that explosivity that a Classic rider does.

“So for Tadej to be able to climb mountains with the best climbers in the world and have that long sustained power, but then come and do a race where you are competing against the very best in the world at that five-minute power block – and not just compete against them, but drop them, it’s almost unheard of in the past 30 years.

“You go back to the Eddy Merckx days and that was probably the last time it happened. He’s winning all of it, he’s just the ultimate role model.”

He crested the final climb – the Paterberg – with a 14-second lead over Van der Poel, leaving a 12km time trial into the finish in Oudenaard. Although Van der Poel had a real crack at the chase, the gap started to creep up, allowing Pogacar to start his celebrations on the home straight.

“It was amazing. Today I will never forget,” the 24-year-old said.

“To go solo, I knew I had to go on Kwaremont the last time. I just gave it my all. I almost cracked on the Paterberg but I knew it was going to be tough. It was the only way to get to the finish.”

He added: “I could retire after today and be proud of my career.”

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