Quintana hails Pogacar as 'strongest in the history of competitive cycling'

In an audience ahead of the sportive, Nairo Quintana, Rigoberto Urán, Egan Bernal, and Vincenzo Nibali had no doubts about Pogačar’s overwhelming superiority.

Quintana is now almost a decade removed from the peak of his Grand Tour career, but the Colombian acknowledged that even in his pomp, he wouldn’t have been able to hold a candle to Pogačar.

Their most memorable encounter came in Livigno on the 2024 Giro d’Italia, when the early escapee Quintana was remorselessly caught and passed by a rampant Pogačar in the closing kilometres.

“Even in our prime, he would be not one, but two steps above us, because he is the strongest man in the entire history of competitive cycling,” Quintana said, according to EFE.

Although reluctant to place Pogačar firmly ahead of Eddy Merckx, Nibali placed him firmly in the same bracket. Nibali’s final race as a professional in 2022 was Il Lombardia, where Pogačar claimed the second of his sequence of five straight victories.

“After 30 years, an incredible rider has emerged again. I think that right now, competing against him is very, very difficult,” Nibali said. “Even when he's having a bad day, he finishes second or third in the race.”

In a recent interview with Win Sports, Bernal confessed to a degree of frustration at Pogačar’s almost absurd superiority, but he also couched it as an honour to race in the same era as the Slovenian.

In Baranquilla, the 2019 Tour de France winner shrugged off the idea that the route of next year’s Grande Boucle had been designed to limit the dominance of Pogačar, who is chasing a record-equalling fifth overall victory. In Bernal’s view, there is simply no way of proofing a race against a rider as complete as Pogačar.

“Today, Pogačar is the strongest rider in the world,” Bernal said. “If you put him in a 100km time trial or any other type of race, he will always be the favourite to win.”

Pogačar enjoyed a remarkable 2025 season, winning 20 races including the Tour de France, the Tour of Flanders, Strade Bianche, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Flèche Wallonne and the Critérium du Dauphiné.

He ended his season by winning the World Championships, the European Championships and Il Lombardia on successive weekends with devastating long-range solo efforts.

Pogačar became the first man to win the Tour and Worlds in successive years, and he also became the first rider to finish on the podium of all five Monuments in the same season.

He has yet to reveal his 2026 race programme, but it is expected that he will chase elusive wins at Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix before returning to defend his titles at the Tour and the Worlds.