All-time cycling great Eddy Merckx has predicted that the soon-to-be-crowned 2026 Tour de France champion Tadej Pogačar could become the first rider ever to take all three Grand Tours in a single season.
Pogačar is set to become the latest member of the Club des Cinq, the elite group of racers who are five-time winners of Tour de France, later this Sunday.
However, Merckx has predicted that Pogačar could also make history of his own by becoming the the first-ever rider to win all three Grand Tours.
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Riding all three of cycling's biggest stage races is far from unheard of, and Pogačar recently become the first rider to win both the Giro and Tour in the same year, in 2024. However, no rider has ever finished on the podium of all three Grand Tours in one season, let alone win the Giro, Tour and Vuelta in the same year. Chris Froome is one of the very few to have taken all three in a 12-month period, taking the Tour and Vuelta in 2017, followed by the Giro in 2018 as did Merckx in 1972-73.
"I have to compliment him, but I don't think he'll limit himself to equal myself and the other champions, soon he will improve on the number of Tours," Merckx told La Gazzetta dello Sport.
"Maybe this year he didn't have that many adversaries, and Vingegaard was unlucky as well.
"But the Danish rider was dropped on the first mountain stage" - on the Tourmalet on stage 5 - "and I don't think he really had the level to get past Pogačar."
Merckx remained as reticent as usual regarding comparisons between himself and Pogačar, saying: "Every era has its own champions. But it's clear that when he became a professional, he knew he had a special talent.
"Maybe I didn't think he could become as powerful as he has on the climbs, I believe that every stage he beat the record for the ascent."
Merckx argued that Pogačar's domination was such that while fans liked the idea of duels between top riders and as spectacular a race as possible, the Slovenian had no rivals when he attacked. But this was not new to cycling.
"The same thing happened when I took on [Jacques] Anquetil and [Raymond] Poulidor, and this year the French have had [Paul] Seixas on the rise. Maybe they were hoping he could have been closer to Pogačar."
As for whether Seixas could take on Pogačar in the future, Merckx said that it would be better to let the Frenchman grow at his own pace and without too much pressure.
"He's talented, but let's not forget Pogačar isn't even 28 and each year he seems to get better and stronger. To reach his level right now seems to me to be virtually impossible."
Merckx had praise for his compatriot Evenepoel, calling the Tour runner-up the best time triallist in the world "without a shadow of a doubt". However, he doubted that he would be able to match Pogačar if the Sloveniean was on a good day in the mountains.
As for winning Giro, Tour and Vuelta in the same year, the Belgian himself did not ever try, although in his era all three Grand Tours took place in the first seven months of the year, whilst the Vuelta has now moved to September since 1995. However, Pogačar going for all three was another story, he said.
"If he's in the right place and the conditions are right, he can do it. The Giro's in May, then he's got two months to do that and then nearly the same to be ready for the Vuelta. He'd need a really strong team, lots of support riders, and they'd have to control the race to be sure he didn't make too much of an effort in straightforward stages.
"It's not even remotely far-fetched for him," Merckx concluded. "If there's one rider who can do it, it's Pogačar."
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