Completely stunned Merckx and Roche welcome Pogacar to elite club: "This guy is second to none"

"It's incredible what he has done; I can't find the words for it. This man is second to none," began a stunned Merckx to Le Parisien. The Belgian, who won the trilogy in 1974, saw Pogacar attack a  hundred kilometers before the finish line: even in his wildest days, "The Cannibal" would not have dared. "You're crazy," he laughed. "Besides, when he attacked, I started to fear for him. I told myself he went too early. Normally, winning with such an attack at a hundred kilometers is impossible, but he did it anyway."

"He is the strongest of his generation; there is no doubt about that. At my age (79, ed.), nothing surprises me anymore. He succeeded in that. I thought he would become world champion, but I never thought he would do it this way. He is the best; kudos to him." The "new Merckx" is what Pogacar is now often called. After the Tour de France, the sound got stronger and stronger. "But this one is different," Merckx states. "I think his career is going to be very similar to mine. He started winning at a very young age, and I feel an enormous desire for him to win everything. A kind of anger arises as soon as he gets on the bike. I love it."

Stephen Roche was the last winner of the Triple Crown. The Irishman was as surprised as his Belgian companion. "It's been 37 years now since I pulled it off. And Eddy Merckx succeeded thirteen years before that. During those years, I had to hear that something like that would be impossible. But it is possible," he said to NOS. "That Pogacar succeeded makes our achievement more human. But it took a superhuman performance. This year was the year for him to do it, and he did it."

The hundred-kilometer attack didn't come as much of a surprise to Roche. "If it were the first time we saw this, I would say it was suicide. But we've seen him do this before. He cycles with his heart and his soul and keeps going. He doesn't think about it, doesn't look at who is in his wheel, and goes for it. When I saw him go, I thought: maybe Eddy Merckx and I will remain the only winners of the Triple Crown for a while. But we knew he could do it from a distance."