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Pogačar vs Merckx: Who had the best season ever?
Tadej Pogačar has finally called an end to his superlative 2024 season. This year, he claimed wins at the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and World Championships as well as two Monuments, the most recent coming last weekend at Il Lombardia. A season like this hasn’t been seen in decades. Or has it?
While Pogačar soaks up the deserving praise for his once-in-a-generation season, only one rider has come close to a season like this before. As with all cycling records, Eddy Merckx is the benchmark. The Belgian – nicknamed ‘The Cannibal’ for a reason – had a frighteningly similar season in 1972 at the age of 27. That year, Merckx claimed two Grand Tours, three Monuments, an Hour record, two stage race wins and a handful of one-day races across Europe. It’s considered the most illustrious year in his career.
With every big race win, Pogačar is edging closer to entering the same ring as Merckx. However, before we get ahead of ourselves and claim him the GOAT, let’s get things straight and take a look at Tadej Pogačar and Eddy Merckx’s respective anni mirabiles.
Eddy Merckx’s 1972 season
To outline our point of comparison, let’s remind ourselves of Eddy Merckx’s 1972 season. In total, Merckx claimed 33 wins throughout 1972, including two Grand Tours and a handful of other impressive honours.
Starting his Grand Tour odyssey, Merckx clinched the Giro d’Italia despite a spring peppered with bad luck – at least by Merckx’s standards. After a rusty start to the race, he picked up momentum by the second week. With strong performances in the time-trials and summit finishes, he managed to win four stages en route to his third maglia rosa.
At the Tour de France, he stepped up a notch to claim six stages (seven if you include the team time-trial). Half of those wins came against the clock, but he led the fight from the front and claimed the overall win by ten minutes.
Alongside this feat, the Cannibal also gobbled up three Monuments during 1972: Milan-San Remo, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia. He also finished in the top ten at the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. Outside of the Monuments, Merckx took home one-day wins at La Flèche Wallonne, Brabantse Pijl, Scheldeprijs, Gran Piemonte, Giro dell’Emilia and Trofeo Baracchi. However, he missed out on successfully defending his road world title.
This was countered by a different world title though. Merckx smashed the Hour record in 1972, clocking up a total length of 49.431km during his 60 minutes in Mexico City. Despite being set on a steel frame with drop handlebars, this UCI record stood for 28 years.
Why 1972 and not another season from the Eddy Merckx archive?
Why did we choose the year Merckx missed out on a rainbow jersey? Well, it’s down to numbers.
1972 was his most victorious season when combined with Grand Tour victories. Plus, the three Monument wins in a single season – an accolade only no other rider has been able to achieve – helped 1972 stick out among the Belgian’s palmarès.
1971 saw a similarly strong season. He clocked up a total of 35 wins, with another three Monuments under his belt. However, there was no Giro title to complement his Tour win. In 1970, his other double-Grand Tour season, Merckx scooped up two Monument wins, but no rainbow jersey. For a proper comparison of his peak, we have to consider 1972 as the ideal point of comparison against Pogačar.
Tadej Pogačar’s 2024 season
I think we’re all very familiar with Tadej Pogačar’s palmarès this year. However, here’s a refresher if the wins fairly blur into one big yellow, pink and rainbow haze.
Let’s start with the big achievement. Pogačar sealed the Triple Crown this year, becoming the first rider since 1987 to collect the pink, yellow and rainbow jerseys in the same season. When embarking on this project at the Giro, Pogačar was untouchable. It only took two days of racing to claim his first stage win and move into the maglia rosa. From there it was smooth sailing for the Slovenian as he scooped up six stages in total. The Tour was a similar story. From Stage 2, Pogačar had already risen to the top of the main GC contenders. With a stage win on day four, the gold rush continued. In the end, another six stages came his way, with particularly dominant performances at Isola 2000 and Plateau de Beille.
Elsewhere in the calendar, Pogačar picked up two Monuments at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia. In winning the ‘Race of the Falling Leaves’, Pogačar clinched his fourth consecutive win at the race. Not even Merckx won a Monument four times in a row.
The newly crowned World Champion only claimed one stage race outside of a Grand Tour – the Volta a Catalunya – however wins at Strade Bianche and GP Montréal kept the top-tier WorldTour wins coming during Pogačar’s high-flying 2024.
In total, Pogačar pinched 25 wins this season (including overall classifications). All his wins bar the Giro dell’Emilia were on the UCI WorldTour level. Altogether, this means that he won 38% of the stages he started (including one-day races) and was undefeated in stage races this year. Pogačar finished on the podium in all the one-day races he started except one, the GP Québec, where he was seventh.
The head-to-head
- Number of wins: Eddy Merckx 33, Tadej Pogačar 25
- Win rate: Eddy Merckx 39.4%, Tadej Pogačar 38.0%
- Race days: Eddy Merckx 127, Tadej Pogačar 58
- Grand Tour wins: Eddy Merckx 2, Tadej Pogačar 2
- Other stage race wins: Eddy Merckx 2 (Escalada a Montjuïc, À Travers Lausanne), Tadej Pogačar 1 (Volta a Catalunya)
- Monument wins: Eddy Merckx 3 (Milan-San Remo, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Il Lombardia), Tadej Pogačar 2 (Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Il Lombardia)
- Other one-day wins: Eddy Merckx 8 (Brabantse Pijl, Flèche Wallonne, Grand Prix de Momignies, Scheldeprijs, GP Union Dortmund, Gran Piemonte, Giro dell’Emilia, Trofeo Baracchi), Tadej Pogačar 3 (Strade Bianche, Grand Prix Cycliste de Montréal, Giro dell’Emilia)
- World Championship titles: Tadej Pogačar 1, Eddy Merckx 0
Comparing the two
Looking at the big victories, the two look very similar. Merckx’s 33 wins compared to Pogačar’s 25 isn’t a huge difference. Particularly when you factor in the big difference in total race days, they have fairly similar results.
Both dominated the Giro and Tour, claiming numerous wins along the way. I would argue that Pogačar’s victories are more impressive given how strong he was across multiple terrains and disciplines in an age where riders appear hyper-specialised. Pogačar also picked up more road stage victories at Grand Tours in 2024 than Eddy Merckx in 1972.
Although Pogačar took part in fewer stage races than Merckx did in 1972, Pogačar had an unbeaten record in them this year. Merckx missed out on Paris-Nice by six seconds and finished 33rd at the Tour of Sardinia. Pogačar, therefore, wins on the stage racing front.
The pro-Pogačar argument faces some difficulty when we look towards the Monuments. Bagging top ten finishes at all five Monuments is mightily impressive from Merckx. In spite of a broken vertebra and a heavy crash at Paris-Roubaix, Merckx still claimed three Monument wins. Moreover, he bagged Brabantse Pijl and Schedleprijs, two staples of the Belgian calendar yet to be claimed by Pogačar.
Pogačar winning Liège and Lombardia doesn’t seem quite as impressive given that they are both climber-friendly Monuments either. If he had added the Tour of Flanders or Milan-San Remo this year, it would be a different discussion. On the other hand, though, Eddy Merckx didn’t come close to winning Lombardia by over three minutes in his triumphant 1972 season.
Although widely accepted as his strongest season, Merckx’s 1972 misses a rainbow jersey. This gives Pogačar’s 2024 season a huge advantage. Plus, during Merckx’s Triple Crown year of 1974, he failed to win a Monument. To date, Pogacar is the only rider to win a Monument (never mind two) and the Triple Crown in one season. For that, his 2024 record could be considered unassailable.
Is a rainbow jersey equal to Merckx’s extra Monument win? Yes. If anything, it outweighs it. For that, Pogačar certainly edges clear of Merckx territory and into unknown cycling territory.
Our verdict
The battle for the best season in men’s cycling history comes down to a photo finish, but I lean towards proclaiming Pogačar’s 2024 as the GSOAT (greatest season of all time).
It’s incredibly hard to separate the two. The manner in which Pogačar dominated around half of his race days was almost dictatorial. Even with increased opposition and a streamlined professional peloton competing against him all year round, he still managed to decimate his rivals throughout 2024. In comparison, Merckx was wobbled by his opponents in 1972. Raymond Poulidor beat him to the Paris-Nice title and José Manuel Fuente had him on the ropes during week one of the Giro that year. This year, Pogačar was rarely shaken by his opposition.
However, I can’t look past Merckx’s ability to succeed in any type of race. The Belgian’s 1972 Grand Tour stats are almost identical to Pogačar’s, even down to the winning margins at the Grand Tours. However, Merckx gets an edge for me when it comes to the one-day racing. Pogačar was maybe a little too pragmatic with his race days this year. Merckx ticked every box in 1972 apart from a rainbow jersey.
The Belgian’s ambitious yet successful Hour record attempt definitely gives him one over Pogačar in that respect, however the Slovenian successfully pulled off the Triple Crown and then some. With Monument wins on top of the three most prestigious jerseys in the sport, Pogačar’s 2024 season will be held as the true ceiling in cycling for decades to come. Merckx had a few of these seasons in his legs, so we can only guess that Pogačar is just getting started. If he can pull this off at 26, it wouldn’t surprise me if Pogačar has at least another season like this left in him.
Triple Crown and Paris-Roubaix next year? Why not?
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