{"id":292065,"date":"2025-11-18T07:12:23","date_gmt":"2025-11-18T07:12:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/292065\/"},"modified":"2025-11-18T07:12:23","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T07:12:23","slug":"the-broom-wagon-what-would-the-pro-cycling-world-look-like-without-pogacar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/292065\/","title":{"rendered":"The Broom Wagon: What would the pro cycling world look like without Poga\u010dar?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The pro scene is certainly a busy one after a last flurry of news in early November. Even the holiday photos and end-of-season soundbites are drying up as we edge nearer to\u00a0photos of lifeless Christmas trees propped up in the living rooms of Andorran and Monegasque apartments next month.\u00a0<\/p>\n

With that in mind, let\u2019s switch things up and look back on 2025 through a wishful lens.<\/p>\n

What do I mean by that? Well, we\u2019re going to see what the 2025 season would have looked like if Tadej Poga\u010dar were somehow abducted by aliens and removed from the pro peloton. Specifically, who would the chief beneficiaries be in a Pog-less world?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Related questions you can explore with Ask Cyclist, our AI search engine.If you would like to ask your own question you just need to , or subscribe<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For starters, somewhat surprisingly it wouldn\u2019t have massively affected UAE Team Emirates\u2019s dominance of the 2025 calendar. Yes, they wouldn\u2019t have overtaken HTC-Columbia\u2019s landmark tally of 85 victories in 2009, but the squad would still have comfortably topped the UCI team rankings even without Pogi\u2019s seismic 11,680-point haul. In fact, they\u2019d still be 7,000 points clear of second placed Visma-Lease a Bike.<\/p>\n

It would, however, have massively improved Jonas Vingegaard\u2019s season return, leaving him as the star of the season. The Dane would have completed a Chris Froome-like sweep of the Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, Tour de France and the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n

On top of these major GC victories, the Visma leader would have picked up an additional five stage victories at both the Tour and the Dauphin\u00e9. His year would have also included a nine-day stint in the yellow jersey and another polka-dot jersey to add to his newly refurbished wardrobe back home in northern Denmark. With what would have been his fourth Tour success in a Poga\u010dar-less universe, the former fish processor would have been well on track to enter the elite club of legends with five Tour\u00a0titles.<\/p>\n

Speaking of the Tour de France, Oscar Onley would have jumped onto the final podium in Paris in third place overall, while\u00a0Mathieu van der Poel would have added another stage victory to his haul on Stage 4\u2019s uphill finish in Rouen. A better opening week you\u2019d be hard-pressed to find.<\/p>\n

If it weren\u2019t for Poga\u010dar, Van der Poel would have also added a fourth Tour of Flanders title to his name, making him the most successful to have ever graced that event. Paris-Roubaix would have also been something of a damp squib without the world champion\u2019s presence, with Van der Poel sailing away to a barnstorming victory two and a half minutes ahead of second place Mads Pedersen, who would have been joined on the podium by Wout van Aert (who would also have been promoted to third in Flanders).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"Xavier Pereyron<\/p>\n

Looking deeper into the calendar, Remco Evenepoel\u2019s fortunes in the latter part of the season would have looked very different. Instead of effectively looking like the Slovenian\u2019s understudy, Evenepoel would have stepped up to claim an historic World and European Championship double in the autumn. This would have been topped off with a Monument victory at Il Lombardia, giving the Belgian the same late-year triple as Poga\u010dar notched up in reality.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Belgian would have led the Tour de France for four days during the opening week too, but Poga\u010dar\u2019s absence would likely have had no effect on Evenepoel’s\u00a0tumultuous abandon in the Pyrenees in week two \u2013 although this could have made it far more dramatic for us at home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The only solace for the underdogs would have come in the Classics. Without Poga\u010dar, chances are Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge would have been tamed by either Giulio Ciccone or Ben Healy. Since Astana\u2019s Simone Velasco finished in fourth in La Doyenne, we could assume that he\u2019d slip into third place.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Tom Pidcock would also be a happy bunny. He\u2019d have bagged a second Strade Bianche title and been spared the humiliation of getting dropped by a ripped-up and bloodstained Poga\u010dar on a March afternoon in Italy. That would have been quite the way for Pidcock to announce himself at his glitzy new squad Q36.5.\u00a0<\/p>\n

One thing that becomes clear in this exercise in rewriting history is that even in a Pog-less world, we\u2019d still be clutching at straws when it comes to new names. Vingegaard would have taken the mantle of Grand Tour dominator himself, Van der Poel would have looked near untouchable in one-day races, and Evenepoel would still have lit the fire in the hearts of Belgian fans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, Poga\u010dar aside we\u2019d still be looking at the same old faces, which suggests that the top end of pro cycling isn\u2019t so much a one-man show as a barbershop quartet of superstars who leave little room for others to break through. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps the moral of the story here is that the Slovenian is far from the only culprit when it comes to the sport being predictable at the highest level. He\u2019s just better at it than the best of the rest.\u00a0<\/p>\n

To get The Broom Wagon straight to your inbox every Monday, click here<\/a> or on the image below.<\/p>\n

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