Elbows out, hunched over his bike in an evocative shot from the archives, Eddy Merckx throws himself over the line in a photo-finish on the Via Roma in San Remo. It is March 1966 and the 20-year-old Belgian has just won the first big professional road race of his career.
If there is surprise on his face, on the faces of vanquished rivals, and among fans and journalists who scrabble around trying to discover more about the winner of his first race in Italy, the world would soon know everything about the man who would rewrite pretty much every record in cycling and set countless new ones. The history books declare there has been no one like Merckx, and never will be. And yet.
There will be no shock if Tadej Pogacar wins Milan-San Remo for the first time on Saturday, but it would be a breakthrough of a different kind — not least because the “new Merckx” label would become so commonplace that it might prove irresistible.
Modern cycling has entered a new calibration; indeed, there is almost a new language dictated by a young Slovenian who has a claim to be as admired/feared by rivals in his sport as perhaps any athlete on earth.
It is a language of celebration of phenomenal abilities but also, in places, of resignation. You will not find a rider in the professional peloton, except perhaps Primoz Roglic on a bullish day, who does not assume that Pogacar will win his third Tour de France in a row this summer, which is unheard of at 23.
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Of course this is a dangerous sport in which the first challenge, in the frenzy of a hurtling peloton or the extremes of the mountains, is staying fit and upright, but Pogacar seemingly does that better than anyone else too.
It is not only that, extraordinarily, he has won ten of the 16 stage races he has started as a professional, but he has not had a “Did Not Finish” among them — so no big crash or succumbing to illness. Put that down to physical resilience and, quite possibly, being less prone to error by so rarely being on the limit — making his own luck, in effect.
And he keeps improving. Pogacar enters a race, and not only wins it but does so with the sort of comfort that, particularly in cycling, can easily tip into suspicion but brings only respect, even awe, these days from those left trailing.
When Pogacar rode away from a high-class field on a freezing stage six at Tirreno-Adriatico last Saturday, he did not need to gain more time. He later explained that he had “attacked to warm up” as if impatient that a dawdling field was making him cold.
Richie Porte was among the riders to watch Pogacar head into the distance and summed up the mood of much of the peloton. “I think [in] the next five years, there’s not going to be many races won by anyone but him,” the Ineos Grenadiers rider told VeloNews. “He is a level above, he just rode off. No one was even able to react. It was just ridiculously hard and he just clipped off, and that was the last we saw of him.”
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Some already complain Pogacar is making a dynamic, complex sport too predictable. They argue that the Tour is diminished if it becomes a procession as soon as it tilts uphill.
It seems far too soon to be bored by greatness — if ever we should be — especially when we are still learning exactly how far Pogacar’s abilities can stretch. And that is what makes the 113th edition of Milan-San Remo such a fascinating prospect.
Of cycling’s classics, the 293km route winding from Milan to the Mediterranean coast gives a chance to the widest range, from sprinters to one-day specialists to stage-racers — “easiest to finish, hardest to win” goes the well-worn summary — which means that even Pogacar will have to play his hand perfectly. Perhaps unexpectedly, if that is possible from the man everyone will be watching.
The sprinters are already assuming that they will be left behind whenever the attacks start, but does Pogacar know when that will be yet? The Cipressa climb is 27km from the finish but not so long or steep (5.6km at about 4 per cent) that it seems possible to build sufficient advantage. The Poggio (4km at less than 4 per cent) just before the race heads towards a flat finish in San Remo is usually where the field thins to a small group fighting for the win — Pog leading over the Poggio writes its own headlines — but will that be leaving it too late given that he will be man-marked by, among others, the brilliantly versatile Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) who will fancy his chances mano a mano in a sprint?
Sadly, Julian Alaphilippe is absent with illness but last year’s winner Jasper Stuyven (Trek-Segafredo) and Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) will also be among those hoping to ensure that this is one course on which Pogacar cannot ride off the front.
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It is asking a lot even of Pogacar to pull off victories on three consecutive Saturdays in Italy even if we know that he can thrive in classics — he won both Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Il Lombardia in 2021 — and is in the electrifying form that propelled a 50km solo breakaway at Strade Bianche this month.
Sir Bradley Wiggins was following on a motorbike for Eurosport/GCN and was reduced to expletives and an inevitable comparison. “He makes me think of Merckx in the late ’60s when he was so good,” Wiggins said. “I’ve never really seen a rider like him. It’s f***ing amazing to be on the motorbike and see him perform like that so close up. I feel so privileged.”
We know the counter-argument. It is there in Merckx’s five Tours, five Giro d’Italia wins, a Vuelta a España, three road world championships, 19 Monuments and so many triumphs they need their own Wikipedia page.
Merkcx went on to win Milan-San Remo seven times in 11 years. Pogacar and his UAE Team Emirates helpers could do everything right yet fall short, and he certainly does not have the element of surprise that Merckx enjoyed in 1966.
But in this old-fashioned race, in which seven hours in the saddle might be condensed into a flash of very late drama unless Pogacar has other ideas, exploring the limits of exceptional talent does not seem predictable at all.
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Milan-San Remo
Saturday, 9.10am
TV Eurosport 2, from 8.40am; highlights, 8pm.
