Tadej Pogačar didn’t need to attend the road racing season’s curtain calls in Italy, Japan, and China this weekend to confirm his dominance in 2024. It’s a subject that’s been covered at length since mid-summer, and while the statistics prove without a doubt that this has been an extraordinary year, debate has raged as to whether Pogačar’s consistently world-beating performances are boring, even good for the sport.
So we turned to the Escape Collective community for an answer, asking members to finish the sentence: Tadej Pogačar’s dominance is …
- Super impressive, we’re witnessing history!
- Kinda dull, but I’m still impressed.
- Suspicious.
- Deathly boring, and potentially damaging to the sport.
- Something else …
After a week, there were over a hundred responses and with them a stream of healthy debate. Now, it should be acknowledged that these results are drawn from a group who are already committed to the sport of road cycling and who have literally invested in their passion, so the numbers will be skewed to the positive. However, even with that caveat, the results are striking.
The consensus is clear: Pogačar’s 25 wins this season – including the Giro-Tour double, the World Championship road race, and two Monuments – have been something to behold; there’s no doubt we’re witnessing history.
However, many members agreed that much more of this and it will get (more) boring fast, and it’s incumbent on other teams and riders to rise to the challenge.
“I don’t think we enjoy dominance, we enjoy excellence,” wrote member David Savage. “Dominance is just excellence without competition.”
About 18 months ago – bear with me here – a new and very quickly world-renowned bakery opened on my street. Over a year later, there is still a queue that stretches 50 metres or more on a daily basis, bending with the curve of the road, in which eager locals and tourists are willing to wait sometimes over an hour for the best croissants and baked goods north of Paris.
One might worry for the prospects of more established local shops with similar offerings, but it seems to have done the opposite; not only do nearby cafés get the latecomers from the queue, but I’ve noticed many have upped their game on the baked goods front – last week I had a slice of raspberry and coconut cake with fluffy Italian meringue icing in a café that used to deal simply in cookies and carrot cake alongside their bloody good coffee.
That’s what we have to hope for in the coming years, as rivals have done in the past: Jonas Vingegaard to complete his comeback and provide a similar challenge as he and his team did in 2022; Remco Evenepoel to continue his ascendence from punchy all-rounder to high-climbing GC favourite – and maybe for someone else to emerge, as they sometimes do, from the younger ranks (as long as UAE doesn’t buy them all …)
But could continued dominance damage the sport? Has it already?
A not-uncommon perspective is that sustained dominance is not only tricky to reconcile given cycling’s history, but that the viewing public needs something to watch just as the sport needs them to tune in, bringing more eyes and ultimately more money into professional cycling.
Interestingly, most commenters were optimistic on this point, like Escape member Bernie who wrote, “I can’t think of one dominant athlete who didn’t benefit their sport. Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Serena Williams … I think it’ll get [newcomers] to watch, and they’ll enjoy the runaway Pogačar victories a few times, then they’ll see a close race, and that gets them in.”
Ange E. added, “this tension between ‘witnessing history’ and ‘lack of competitive uncertainty’ exists in many sports, and … journalists often say that although superfans tend to dislike extended dominance and express it loudly, more casual viewers seem to be drawn to dynasties and dominant athletes, who provide an easy entry point and ‘narrative anchor’. In cycling terms, it would be easier to sell to the larger public ‘the Great Pogačar wins again!’ than ‘Surprise: Xandro Meurisse upsets everyone in Como!’, but it’s probably less true for a target audience of ‘connoisseurs’.”
These questions will remain front and centre for for as long as Pogačar remains dominant, and you can bet he’ll be extra motivated in the rainbow bands. And what’s going to put the counter-boredom side on edge is the wider UAE Team Emirates squad that just gets stronger and stronger.
A few years ago, we were talking about a superlative Tour de France contender whose Achilles Heel was his weak team, but that’s just not the case anymore. Add to that the terrible bad luck that befell so many of his rivals in a season like 2024 and you’ve got a classic case of the stars aligning for the Slovenian superstar.
One thing is certain, regardless of how 2024 is seen from a future vantage point, and that’s Pogačar’s influence on the sport. He is making history.
“I think Pogacar could be (and arguably has been) one of those athletes that changes the sport,” wrote Stacy Snyder, of cycling-themed mug fame. “Teams and riders will have to change tactics in order to beat the greats of today’s peloton and that’s exciting to watch and to think about. At least, I hope it changes and finds a way to adapt to be able to respond to the long solo attacks, and I look forward to cheering for the folks that do it.”
Ultimately, the original question comes down to personal taste. Like movies, music, literature – and cake – if you ask someone for their subjective opinion, the answer is always correct. We’re not dealing in fact. So, boring? Exciting? That’s up to you.
That said, the chances are we’d all agree that we’d like to see Pogačar have to fight a little harder, so like the old bakeries in a neighbourhood that gets an award-winning rival, let’s hope more rise to the challenge in 2025.
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