Tadej Pogačar 'vastly superior' to Eddy Merckx, says retiring WorldTour star – for reasons you might not have thought of

For years cycling fans have sought to compare the rider of the moment to the great Eddy Merckx – the 500-victory 'Cannibal' who ruled the sport in the early 1970s.

Despite the comparisons, very few riders have filled more than a small part of the massive impression Merckx made on the sport – until Tadej Pogačar.

And when it comes to the Slovenian superstar there is at least one out-going professional who has little doubt how he stacks up against Merckx.

There is no doubt in his mind that Pogačar is the best rider who ever lived, Michael Woods told Cycling Weekly last week.

Comparing the landscape in which the two riders have raced makes the comparison even more stark, multiple Grand Tour stage winner Woods, who at 39 is retiring from Israel-Premier Tech at the end of this season, explained.

"Merckx was competing when there were only four billion people on the planet," he said. "And only four countries were good at it… and there were guys he was racing against who were still working.

These days, that figure of four billion has grown – slightly alarmingly in such as short period of time – to a shade over eight billion.

"The fact that Pogačar's as good as he is with this level of depth, with this pool of talent that's being drawn from, it's vastly superior, vastly superior," the Canadian surmised.

Unlike Woods himself, who only made the step up from Continental ranks to the WorldTour when he was 29, Pogačar began winning big early, with a Tour de France victory aged just 21.

This year he has won from start to finish, including the Tour de France and the World Championships and other major races, often with swashbuckling and entirely indomitable style. Exactly how long he can keep it all up for might come down to his mental, rather than physical game, Woods reckoned.

"It becomes not as fun when you have less of an opposition, so I certainly believe. So I don't foresee Pogačar racing into his late-30s. But, you never know. Like, he doesn't need to. He can stop tomorrow. And in my mind, he's the greatest cyclist that's ever lived."

"You even saw it with [Peter] Sagan," Woods added. "Sagan just got bored. You could tell he was just doing it as a job. And when you're an athlete like Pogačar and Sagan… these guys want to be pushing the limits and testing themselves."

As for Woods's future, he may be retired but his 'to do' list is far from empty, he said, and he has no plans to hang up his wheels.

"I've got some big plans… I want to do some alternative events – bucket list items… I just love exercising and love training, love racing."

He listed "a lot of the Life Time Grand Prix events, Leadville, maybe Cape Epic – and I want to try and do a good IronMan [triathlon] too.

"I want to answer the question of whether I'd be a good triathlete or not," he said.

And in terms of what he makes of the controversy that has surrounded the team with which is registered until December 31, he said: "I think a lot is going to be determined in the next few weeks in terms of what's going to happen with the team.

"But, yeah, it was a tough time for everybody in the last few months," he added. "but I think a lot of positive changes can happen within the team moving forward, I think there's a lot of good that's going to come out of this."