The Newest Triple Crown Winner on Two Wheels
October 1, 2024 2:29 PM Subscribe
On Sunday, September 29, Giro d'Itaia and Tour de France winner, Tadej Pogačar won the World Championship race in Zurich, becoming the third male cyclist to win the sport's triple crown since the last winner in 1987.
The cycling triple crown is won when a cyclist wins two grand tours (multi-week stage races) and the World Championships in one season. One of the grand tours should be the Tour de France, the most esteemed and highly held of the grand tour races. The other races, Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta de España, are considered acceptable, but so far all triple crown winners have won the Giro, not the Vuelta, which has historically been seen as the lesser of the three.
The previous male cyclists winners were the great Eddy Merckx, of Belgium, and Irish rider, Stephen Roche. Only one female cyclist has won the Triple Crown, in 2022, the incredible Annemiek van Vleuten, of the Netherlands.
The cycling triple crown is won when a cyclist wins two grand tours (multi-week stage races) and the World Championships in one season. One of the grand tours should be the Tour de France, the most esteemed and highly held of the grand tour races. The other races, Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta de España, are considered acceptable, but so far all triple crown winners have won the Giro, not the Vuelta, which has historically been seen as the lesser of the three.
The previous male cyclists winners were the great Eddy Merckx, of Belgium, and Irish rider, Stephen Roche. Only one female cyclist has won the Triple Crown, in 2022, the incredible Annemiek van Vleuten, of the Netherlands.
I have no doubt that Tadej could have swept all three grand tours, won the Olympic road race, the world championship, and possibly the Olympic TT. There’s quite simply no one else like him on the road right now, and we are so lucky to be alive to see it.
posted by turbowombat at 2:58 PM on October 1 [4 favorites]
posted by turbowombat at 2:58 PM on October 1 [4 favorites]
Lanterne Rouge rates climbs by measuring estimated power-to-weight output of the rider, with time as the Y-axis. (You should expect that anyone, regardless of fitness, can put out more power over shorter timespans.) By their metrics, Pogačar had three of the 40 greatest climbing performances in the 2024 Tour.
posted by suckerpunch at 3:06 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]
posted by suckerpunch at 3:06 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]
It's crazy though because without him, we'd possibly be having this convo about Remco, and he's only slightly more remarkable than van der Poel and WvA. With a healthy amount of skepticism about how clean the sport is given its past, we really are living in a remarkable age for bike racers.
Lets not forget the ladies. Lotte Kopecky managed to repeat as world champ in the road race, and multi-disciplinary world champ and rising superstar Puck Pieterse won the U23.
On a sadder note, Swiss rider Muriel Furrer dies after sustaining injuries on rain slicked roads during the junior race.
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:07 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
Lets not forget the ladies. Lotte Kopecky managed to repeat as world champ in the road race, and multi-disciplinary world champ and rising superstar Puck Pieterse won the U23.
On a sadder note, Swiss rider Muriel Furrer dies after sustaining injuries on rain slicked roads during the junior race.
posted by OHenryPacey at 3:07 PM on October 1 [5 favorites]
I don't follow cycling but it shows up in my feed and I've read the name Tadej Pogačar quite a lot this year. The only news I ended up reading from the World Championships was about a Canadian cyclist eating a tupperware box of sodium bicarbonate gel during the race.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:10 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 3:10 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
The World Championships is a funny race. Depending on the route profile, it might favour a sprint finish, or be structured so that a climber has an advantage. The result is that, in any given year, the fact of who wins the world championships may not bear a whole lot of correlation to who the best rider is at that time. I don't think that anyone would have seriously contended that, say, Mark Cavendish was the world's best rider when he took the rainbow jersey in 2011.
Which is all to say that the best rider in the world rode away from the rest of a very motivated peleton in a demonstration of superiority that is just on another level. For this year at least world championships rainbow jersey will be worn by the rider who is without doubt the best in the world right now, and possibly ever.
posted by tim_in_oz at 4:41 PM on October 1 [3 favorites]
Which is all to say that the best rider in the world rode away from the rest of a very motivated peleton in a demonstration of superiority that is just on another level. For this year at least world championships rainbow jersey will be worn by the rider who is without doubt the best in the world right now, and possibly ever.
posted by tim_in_oz at 4:41 PM on October 1 [3 favorites]
Why is it bad to break away from the peloton? Wind resistance?
posted by rebent at 4:53 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
posted by rebent at 4:53 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
"Bad" might not be the right word, but basically yeah. It's about aerodynamics.
When you're riding 25 kph (way slower than the pros) on level ground, 90% of the drag you encounter on a bike is aerodynamic, and it increases with the square of your speed. If you're pacelining behind someone else, your aerodynamic resistance is reduced about 30%. If you're in the middle of a big pack with 100 other riders, you're in an air bubble that moves with you, so your drag is greatly reduced.
So it's much harder for a solo rider to stay ahead of a pack, where the riders can rotate through the lead position. Some riders can pull this off. Some have explosive sprints, and have a better chance of winning if any breakaways get reeled in before the finish (especially since the riders in the break will be comparatively exhausted).
posted by adamrice at 5:05 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
When you're riding 25 kph (way slower than the pros) on level ground, 90% of the drag you encounter on a bike is aerodynamic, and it increases with the square of your speed. If you're pacelining behind someone else, your aerodynamic resistance is reduced about 30%. If you're in the middle of a big pack with 100 other riders, you're in an air bubble that moves with you, so your drag is greatly reduced.
So it's much harder for a solo rider to stay ahead of a pack, where the riders can rotate through the lead position. Some riders can pull this off. Some have explosive sprints, and have a better chance of winning if any breakaways get reeled in before the finish (especially since the riders in the break will be comparatively exhausted).
posted by adamrice at 5:05 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
Well, would *anybody* have considered [checks notes] Rui Costa to be the absolute best in 2013? Worlds is almost inarguably the biggest race on the calendar (more prestigious than the Olympics), but because riders are grouped according to nationality and not their normal trade team, the difference in dynamics and alliances can play a very large role. See also the women's Netherlands team in this year's and last year's worlds, not to mention the 2021 Olympics. But I digress.
The reason long solo breakaways are so incredibly risky is that it's leaving everything to chance. A team leader relies on his teammates for everything from bottle and nutrition delivery to drafts to an emergency bike change to keeping him in position at crucial parts of the course. To go it alone means everything is left up to the rider's individual legs and any bad luck that could befall him. Pogi is an absolute monster and he has such power and a kick that he doesn't really *need* to go it alone from so far out, but he loves doing it, and it's pretty much impossible to keep him from doing it. See also this year's Strade Bianche, when he launched solo at 80km to go and had enough of a cushion leading into the finish where he could soft pedal and celebrate at the line with his bike held overhead and nobody else in sight. Complete lunacy!
I was so incredibly nervous for Tadej all week, watching the various races leading up to Sunday, seeing that the course was not going to be that selective for climbers. We were watching the race live at work, and most of us were on the edge of our seats. It was so incredibly exciting!
If Wout had been there, I think Remco and the Belgian team would have stood a far better chance at chasing him down, but then who knows?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 6:13 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
The reason long solo breakaways are so incredibly risky is that it's leaving everything to chance. A team leader relies on his teammates for everything from bottle and nutrition delivery to drafts to an emergency bike change to keeping him in position at crucial parts of the course. To go it alone means everything is left up to the rider's individual legs and any bad luck that could befall him. Pogi is an absolute monster and he has such power and a kick that he doesn't really *need* to go it alone from so far out, but he loves doing it, and it's pretty much impossible to keep him from doing it. See also this year's Strade Bianche, when he launched solo at 80km to go and had enough of a cushion leading into the finish where he could soft pedal and celebrate at the line with his bike held overhead and nobody else in sight. Complete lunacy!
I was so incredibly nervous for Tadej all week, watching the various races leading up to Sunday, seeing that the course was not going to be that selective for climbers. We were watching the race live at work, and most of us were on the edge of our seats. It was so incredibly exciting!
If Wout had been there, I think Remco and the Belgian team would have stood a far better chance at chasing him down, but then who knows?
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 6:13 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]
Drafting saves a huge amount of energy- sometimes on the order of a quarter to a half. It's complicated and varies depending on grade, positioning, wind, and other factors, but it's analogous to the leader riding on a flat surface while the riders behind are going downhill. Or the rider in front pulling the trailing riders with a rope.
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:00 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]
posted by Mr.Know-it-some at 8:00 PM on October 1 [1 favorite]
a Canadian cyclist eating a tupperware box of sodium bicarbonate gel during the race.
If you're going to let the riders openly dope like that, just bring back EPO. This is the silliest compromise.
posted by Dysk at 1:22 AM on October 2
If you're going to let the riders openly dope like that, just bring back EPO. This is the silliest compromise.
posted by Dysk at 1:22 AM on October 2
If you're going to let the riders openly dope like that, just bring back EPO. This is the silliest compromise.
This is doping no more than eating a granola bar or drinking a gatorade, and saying that if you allow bicarb then you should allow EPO is like saying that if you allow someone to take a protein shake after a workout then you might as well allow steroids. There are a lot of things that athletes can ingest that are, strictly speaking, performance-enhancing (another food that buffers lactate is beet juice). But they're not considered doping because they are not on a list of banned substances.
One of the reasons EPO was banned is because it was so dramatically effective at increasing the amount of oxygen a body can deliver to its muscles, so brutally effective at making you a faster cyclist, that young people desperate to make it big were dying of heart attacks because of their thickened, sludgy blood.
There definitely ARE things that are in a gray area - not banned in competition but should be (like tramadol), or banned in competition but not out of competition. Bicarb ain't one of them.
posted by entropone at 4:36 AM on October 2 [6 favorites]
This is doping no more than eating a granola bar or drinking a gatorade, and saying that if you allow bicarb then you should allow EPO is like saying that if you allow someone to take a protein shake after a workout then you might as well allow steroids. There are a lot of things that athletes can ingest that are, strictly speaking, performance-enhancing (another food that buffers lactate is beet juice). But they're not considered doping because they are not on a list of banned substances.
One of the reasons EPO was banned is because it was so dramatically effective at increasing the amount of oxygen a body can deliver to its muscles, so brutally effective at making you a faster cyclist, that young people desperate to make it big were dying of heart attacks because of their thickened, sludgy blood.
There definitely ARE things that are in a gray area - not banned in competition but should be (like tramadol), or banned in competition but not out of competition. Bicarb ain't one of them.
posted by entropone at 4:36 AM on October 2 [6 favorites]
If you really want to nerd out, this article talks about power numbers in the Worlds race. We don't have Pogačar's power numbers, but we do have those of a few guys who paced him for parts of the race.
"After his attack from the breakaway at 79 km to go Sivakov held an eye-watering 485 watts (7 W/kg) for 8:37. This is only made even more mind-boggling when you consider that for the majority of that time, Sivakov was sitting in the draft as Pogačar pulled."
I'm not sure I could hold 7 W/kg for 8 seconds, never mind 8 minutes.
posted by adamrice at 8:22 AM on October 2 [1 favorite]
"After his attack from the breakaway at 79 km to go Sivakov held an eye-watering 485 watts (7 W/kg) for 8:37. This is only made even more mind-boggling when you consider that for the majority of that time, Sivakov was sitting in the draft as Pogačar pulled."
I'm not sure I could hold 7 W/kg for 8 seconds, never mind 8 minutes.
posted by adamrice at 8:22 AM on October 2 [1 favorite]
Tadej Pogacar has delivered an alternative reality for the true believers, Jonathan Liew, The Guardian.
I thought this was a pretty good article about the season Pogačar has had and how people come to terms with greatness in sports, especially ones with such a checkered history like cycling.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:24 AM on October 4 [1 favorite]
I thought this was a pretty good article about the season Pogačar has had and how people come to terms with greatness in sports, especially ones with such a checkered history like cycling.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 5:24 AM on October 4 [1 favorite]
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Pogačar did not compete in the Vuelta at all this year, perhaps because riding three grand tours in one year is too exhausting, and perhaps also to give his teammates a chance to emerge from his shadow.
He didn't compete in the Olympics either, and it is widely speculated that it was because the Slovenian national team snubbed his fiancee, Urška Žigart, who is no slouch either: in 2024, she won both the national road and time-trial championships.
posted by adamrice at 2:51 PM on October 1 [2 favorites]