Tadej Pogačar is expected to continue his dominance of the 2024 season at Il Lombardia on Saturday and could win a fourth consecutive edition of the Italian monument and his 25th victory of the season.
His dominance of the World Championships and his 100km attack again sparked comparisons with Eddy Merckx. Yet the Slovenian's dominance has also sparked unfounded suspicion and questions, just as in the past with other riders in the darkest era of the sport.
While speaking about his incredible 2024 season and Saturday's Il Lombardia on Friday afternoon, two French video crews put questions to the UAE Team Emirates leader, one referring to a recent response from Tour de France director Christian Prudhomme.
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Regional French newspaper La Dépêche du Midi asked Prudhomme: If one day you learned that he (Pogačar) was doping, would you be surprised, disappointed, disgusted?
Prudhomme reportedly replied: "Given the past of cycling and not so distant past, your question is not illegitimate. I do not have an answer."
Pogačar did not fully understand the question when Prudhomme's comments were put to him but he gave a lengthy reply.
He ended by saying: "There are always people who are jealous and suspicious and there's nothing I can do about it."
His thoughts were more elaborate.
"Cycling is a sport where in the past, people were doing everything they could to their bodies, to be better, unknowing what it does to your health, and they were risking their life," he said.
"A lot of guys that you don't even know, not even the winners, are probably now sick or have some other health problems or mental problems because of what they were doing to their bodies in the past 20 or 30 years.
"In my honest opinion, my humble opinion. I think cycling suffered a lot from those years. There was no trust and it was up to us the cyclists to regain the trust. But there's nothing we can do. We just race our own race, and we hope that people will start to believe us.
"You need to have a winner and always a winner will get the most eyes on him that he's a cheater. Maybe in a few generations, people will forget about the past, about Armstrong and these guys, that were doing what they were doing, and maybe they will move on.
"From my personal experience, I think cycling is one of the best sports [...] where people are looking to be more healthy and not more unhealthy, just for the performance.
"We now realise that cycling is a really dangerous sport. Like with an accident with your heart, you cannot push it over the limit, you need to stay healthy. And if you want to risk your health for a 10-year career, it's a waste of your life and it can be stupid.
Responding to another question about suspicion of his dominance, Pogačar made a wider consideration.
"You see domination everywhere. You see domination in the business world, you see domination in tennis, in golf, in the NBA, in football," he said.
"In any other sport, you see domination from teams and from individual athletes. I think there's always domination for a few years, a maximum of a few years and then at some point, a new talent comes along, a new hungrier guy, a new and better team. There's a generation change and there will be someone else dominating. It's like that in life."
Cyclingnews will report Pogačar's comment on Il Lombardia in a separate story.
