{"id":7384,"date":"2024-10-16T10:08:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-16T08:08:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/?p=7384"},"modified":"2024-11-13T10:20:36","modified_gmt":"2024-11-13T09:20:36","slug":"opinion-is-pogacar-too-good-for-the-sport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/uk\/2024\/10\/16\/opinion-is-pogacar-too-good-for-the-sport\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Is Poga\u010dar Too Good for the Sport?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I sometimes watch a movie more than once even though I know how it ends. The reason is that the ending was not the best thing about the film and knowing it did not diminish the pleasure of watching it again. I\u2019m thinking of Pulp Fiction<\/em>, for example, or Chinatown <\/em>or any film by the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

But these are the exceptions. If a film\u2019s main attraction are suspense and a surprise ending, like any good whodunit, I see no point in watching it more than once. If you know at the beginning who did it, it murders the film\u2019s suspense, which has to keep us watching until the end. I think most people feel that way.<\/p>\n

And that goes for any sporting event as well. Why watch a football or rugby match if you know who won? I might watch a rugby match replay just to see the scoring plays because I love rugby. But that\u2019s all. And most replays are like that, concentrating on the scores and other highlights.<\/p>\n

I watched Sunday\u2019s Il Lombardia with the same attitude because I knew, just as everyone knew, that Tadej Poga\u010dar would win it easily. And that\u2019s exactly what happened. Yes, it was interesting to watch UAE Team Emirates chase down the breakaway and soften up Pogi\u2019s rivals until he took off on his now inevitable winning solo breakaway. But if I hadn\u2019t been tasked with writing about the race, I might have switched stations then \u2013 or at least followed the race with less than complete attention \u2013 because the race was over.<\/p>\n

\"Tadej<\/a>
Poga\u010dar easily won Il Lombardia. \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In fact, it could be said that the race was over before it even started, so great was the dominance of the Slovenian and his team this year. But is that good for the sport of cycling? The Dutch journalist and cyclist Thijs Zonneveld\u00a0firmly believes it is not. “No matter how beautiful his solos are, no matter how special his season was: the superiority was too great,\u201d he wrote in AD<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cMaybe, just maybe, he\u2019ll wait until the last climb,\u201d he continued. \u201cOr for a final sprint with a handful of others, to make it a little suspenseful. But let’s be honest: the chance of that is about as likely as it raining chocolate sprinkles on Saturday. It’s more likely that Tadej Poga\u010dar\u00a0will go for it 50 kilometres from the finish. Or even 80. And if he feels like it, he\u2019ll already be gone before the broadcast starts.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to praise Poga\u010dar for his remarkable season, acknowledging that it was \u201cone for the history books.\u201d But he quickly changed tack. \u201cAlmost everything worked out for him. He didn\u2019t get sick, didn\u2019t crash, never had bad luck at crucial moments, and never missed a move. His baseline performance was so absurdly high that we couldn\u2019t even tell if he was just in good form or top form. He never got tired. I did. Of him. And I think I’m not alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zonneveld is probably right (though I wonder if he would feel the same way if Poga\u010dar were Dutch). I don\u2019t doubt that most cycling fans \u2013 most sports fans in general \u2013 love to cheer for a winner. After all, that\u2019s one of the great attractions of sports: it enables fans to stop feeling like losers because their marriages are failing or have already done so, their jobs are unsatisfying and don\u2019t pay enough or any of a dozen other reasons for feeling dissatisfied with life. Backing a winner dispels that dissatisfaction, if only for a day or two or until the next match or the next race. Happily, fans of Poga\u010dar were able to feel like winners all year long.<\/p>\n

There are, of course, also true cycling fans who feel privileged to be able to watch a true genius of the sport in their lifetime. Instead of suspense, he has provided otherworldly brilliance, which is not a bad substitute. But I have the feeling that many cycling fans have become disgruntled by the inevitability of his wins. On the website SingletrackWorld,<\/a> comments ranged from \u201cDull as ****\u201d to \u201cI turned off with 20 km to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there was this, from someone signing on as \u201ccrazy-legs\u201d: \u201cCommentators were saying it was 25 wins in 57 days of racing. Which is insane and impressive but sadly also rather dull. I turned [the Lombardia] on with 45 km to go and it wasn\u2019t a race, it was a procession. The only even vaguely exciting bit was seeing the third group on the road fighting it out for 3rd place. World Track Championships next week from Denmark, thankfully Poga\u010dar doesn\u2019t race track!\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure, that\u2019s a very small sample size but it seems to show that cycling may have a real problem. (And was the expected lack of suspense the reason the English-language Eurosport did not broadcast Il Lombardia live, showing minor races instead? If so, then cycling has a bigger problem than I thought.)<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar is thinking about bringing his invincibility to all three Grand Tours, a feat that has never been done. \u201cI thought about doing La Vuelta too,\u201d he told La Gazzetta dello Sport<\/a>. \u201cBut the Olympic Games were on and I did not participate because I had to recover. Giro d’Italia, Tour and Vuelta in the same year? I am not thinking about that now, but one year I might do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He just might. That would certainly bring suspense back into the sport, especially if Jonas Vingegaard returns to his best form and Remco Evenepoel improves his climbing. I would certainly watch all three Grand Tours to see if he can pull off yet another historic feat. Three Grand Tours or not, if Vingegaard and Evenepoel were able to provide real opposition in the Grand Tours next year, it would be great for the sport. And if Evenepoel, Mathieu van der Poel and a fit-again Wout van Aert provided serious challenges to him in the one-day Classics, that would also spice up the year. And their respective teams also need to step up and provide opposition to UAE Team Emirates.<\/p>\n

It would be a shame if Poga\u010dar\u2019s undeniable greatness became a handicap for the sport rather than its main attraction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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