Cyclist
What if Tadej Pogačar didn’t exist?
Tadej Pogačar’s cycling career began in the early 2000s just north of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana. On his street, a young Pogačar would ride his unicycle and put on shows for family and friends. That fascination with bikes spiralled into one of the most illustrious careers in the sport’s history.
The 26-year-old has tasted glory 88 times since he turned professional at the beginning of 2019. Alongside his three Tour de France trophies, Pogačar has a Giro d’Italia pink jersey, an Olympic medal, a whole host of Monument victories as well as a world title.
However, what if there was a timeline where Tadej Pogačar never picked up that tricycle? Instead, he never took to cycling and instead pursued a career in banking or as a school teacher, for example. What would the sport look like without Tadej Pogačar?
For this exercise, we’ll remove all traces of Tadej Pogačar from the scoresheet in order to figure out what the sport would look like without him. Yes, this doesn’t quite respect the way in which he influences race outcomes. There’s no way of knowing if a race would have been ridden the same way without him. For now, however, let’s get our tinfoil hats on and start hypothesising.
Jonas Vingegaard would be a four-time Tour winner
If Tadej Pogačar decided to pick up a different career, we’d have a four-time Tour winner in Jonas Vingegaard. Not only that, they would have been in consecutive years in rather dominant fashion free from the tight rivalry between himself and the Slovenian.
From winning the race on debut in 2021 as a still relatively unknown rider embedded within the Jumbo-Visma lineup, Vingegaard would only grow into a more convincing Tour champion. Plus, with four Tour de France titles, Vingegaard would be within touching distance of becoming the youngest entrant into the exclusive club of riders to have won five Tours.
On top of the extra GC wins, it’s likely that Vingegaard’s stage win tally would increase too. In the past four Tours, Vingegaard has finished runner-up to Pogačar on nine occasions. Add those nine wins to the count and Vingegaard would be on 13 Tour stage wins.
We’d live in a world where Primož Roglič would be a Tour de France champion
I’m sure Primož Roglič would give an awful lot away to wipe the 2020 time-trial on La Planche des Belles Filles from his memory. Luckily, if Pogačar never rocked up to the Tour that year, Roglič would have won the 2020 Tour by over two minutes and his teammate Tom Dumoulin would have conquered La Planche on a day Jumbo-Visma celebrated a dominant Tour performance. Roglič would have been spared the drama and commotion of his surprise undoing. Instead, he’d have rightfully won the 2020 Tour as many people expected beforehand.
Would Roglič’s trajectory have changed if he had won the 2020 Tour? Almost certainly. His legacy and palmarès would be held in a very different regard. As one of the most decorated riders of the current era without a Tour win, the maillot jaune has continued to be the thorn in his side. Alongside his Vuelta and Monument wins in 2020, a Tour triumph would have secured this season its place in the cycling archives for years to come.
Regardless, Roglič would only win one Tour in this alternative timeline. Removing Pogačar from the peloton doesn’t change Roglič’s habit of crashing out of the race. However, with this 2020 victory, he would have won every Grand Tour in the sport by 2023. Mikel Landa would have moved up to third too.
Enric Mas would have won a Monument and Mathieu van der Poel would have set a new record in Flanders
Throughout his short career, Pogačar has already claimed seven Monuments: four in Lombardy, two in Liège and one in Flanders. In his absence, we would have had a whole host of new Monument men.
Sans Pogačar, Il Lombardia would have had an interesting selection of winners. Enric Mas would have silenced critics at the 2022 edition, and QuickStep men Fausto Masnada and Andrea Bagioli would have dished up two surprise home victories. Plus, we were robbed this year of seeing Remco Evenepoel win the race that almost ended his career back in 2020.
At Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Pogačar blocked French hopes in 2021 and 2024. Julian Alaphilippe would have finally won the Ardennais Monument in 2021 and Romain Bardet would have claimed a Monument this year in what would have been a very popular win.
Lastly, Pogačar’s presence has derailed Mathieu van der Poel‘s journey towards breaking the shared record of three Tour of Flanders wins. Without Pogačar’s remarkable win in 2023, we’d have seen the record number of wins smashed by Van der Poel this spring. With the rainbow jersey and bike aloft in the air, this would have been another record-breaking heroic to add to the 2024 season.
Tom Pidcock and Dani Martínez would be Grand Tour jersey winners
Behind every victory in Pogačar’s palmarès is a runner-up. Beyond Tour de France titles and Monuments, a real range of riders would have reached new heights if it weren’t for his presence.
The polka-dot jersey at the 2020 and 2021 Tours de France would have gone the way of the breakaway. Rightfully so, I might add. Richard Carapaz and Wout Poels would have won those. Between 2020 and 2023, the white jersey would have been passed around several future stars. Enric Mas, Vingegaard, Tom Pidcock and Carlos Rodríguez would have all won the young rider’s maillot blanc.
If you’re looking for other jersey wearers, Evenepoel, Neilson Powless, Lennard Kämna, Ben O’Connor and Rigoberto Urán would have all spent at least a day in the Tour’s coveted maillot jaune.
With a Pogačar-shaped hole on the startlist, Alaphilippe would have finally won Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Bauke Mollema would have taken an Olympic medal back in 2021. Similarly, we were deprived of a hero’s farewell for Alejandro Valverde who was denied victory in his last Strade Bianche in 2022. To add, David Gaudu would have claimed the 2023 Paris-Nice title and Ben Healy would have won a tough edition of Amstel Gold that year.
We can’t ignore the fact that Dani Martínez would have won the Giro’s pink jersey this year if it weren’t for Tadej Pogačar either.
Ben O’Connor would have podiumed all three Grand Tours, worn the yellow jersey and become World Champion
The main beneficiary from this Pogačar blackout would be Australia’s Ben O’Connor. Without Pogačar on the startline, O’Connor would have become one of the most decorated Grand Tour riders of the 2020s so far. The Decathlon-AG2R rider would have finished on the podium of all three Grand Tours if Pogačar wasn’t there to rain on his parade.
The first of these would have come at the 2021 Tour de France where he would have moved up into third place. He would also have gone on to wear the yellow jersey for two stages that year.
2024 would have seen a big improvement. At the real Giro, O’Connor was edged into fourth, but counting out Pogačar, the Perth-born rider would have made it onto the podium. What’s more, a last-chance attack at the World Championships paved the way for O’Connor to finish runner-up behind the eventual winner Pogačar. Therefore, can we dare suggest that O’Connor would have won the rainbow jersey under these Pogačar-less circumstances? We can only dream.
Wout van Aert would have topped the UCI rankings
To look broadly at who the season’s stars would have been without Pogačar around, let’s take the UCI rankings into account.
For the individual rider rankings, things would look very different at the top. Pogačar has been the top-scoring rider in the UCI rankings each year since 2021. Removing the Slovenian from the equation brings a much fiercer ding-dong for the top of the UCI leaderboard.
With the 2024 men’s road season completed for the peloton’s figureheads, we can see that Evenepoel would comfortably top the UCI rankings if it weren’t for a certain Slovenian. Last year, the then-Tour champion Vingegaard would have added a UCI rankings title to his trophy cabinet. 2022 would have been a tight battle between Wout van Aert and Evenepoel at the top, however, 2021 would have safely been in the hands of Van Aert.
In the team rankings, Pogačar strips some points from the UAE Team Emirates total haul over the past four seasons. They would have missed out on their 2023 top spot. In total, the Slovenian brought in 24.8% of the team’s total points score. In 2022, this share increases to 38.4%. Without Pogačar’s mammoth points score in 2022, UAE Team Emirates would have finished in sixth place in the UCI team rankings.
The Pogačar-less landscape
Without Pogačar in the pro peloton, the sport would undoubtedly be in a very different place.
We’d see Chris Froome-like domination of the Tour de France courtesy of Vingegaard being miles ahead of his Tour opponents. On the other hand, Il Lombardia would become a much more open race – and, to be honest, a more exciting race too.
UAE Team Emirates would likely not be as strong. Perhaps without a Pogačar figure, the team would not have brought in the likes of João Almeida and Adam Yates. Instead, the team might have carried on the same course they had before as a mismatched squad during the late 2010s. However, for the sake of keeping this simple, it would be fascinating to see an Almeida-led Tour roster.
I’d also suspect that Jumbo-Visma would have grown into the unchallenged leaders of the pack. After storming to the top of the Tour standings from 2020 until 2024 in this alternative timeline, the Dutch team would seem insurmountable in the Grand Tours – very similar to that of Team Sky during the 2010s. I think we can agree that wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing for the sport.
On the other hand, I think more interest and attention would be given towards Evenepoel in this timeline. With no Pogačar to break the mould, Evenepoel would be seen even more as the intriguing generational talent akin to Eddy Merckx. His efforts in the Classics and Grand Tours would be heralded, and Evenepoel would be claimed as the most all-around cyclist in the world. However Pogačar is very much existent and is the greatest cyclist of the 21st century. Sorry Remco.
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