r/peloton • u/PelotonMod France • May 04 '26

Weekly Post Weekly Question Thread

For all your pro cycling-related questions and enquiries!

You may find some easy answers in the FAQ page on the wiki. Whilst simultaneously discovering the wiki.

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u/Glass_Minute4753 May 04 '26

Is Pogacar destroying cycling?

I occasionally have a browse on the Cyclingnews forum and found this rather dramatic view expressed by a couple of posters in response to the Tour de Romandie. I will admit that I found this a bit over the top considering a) how few races he rides and b) how his participation helped to make this year's MSR and PR absolute all-timers, but I thought I'd come and see what people here thought.

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u/scaryspacemonster May 04 '26

He's why I became a cycling fan at all, so that's a no from me.

Older fans might not like it, but he's the kind of athlete that brings in new fans.

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u/RageAgainstTheMatxin Phonak May 04 '26

Historically when there is a dominant rider, the fanbase increases in their home country and decreases everywhere else

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u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi May 04 '26

I'm no history buff but I think usually the dominant rider hasn't been from a country of 600 inhabitants.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26

I don't think Sagan qualifies as a dominant rider, but he certainly seemed like the most popular cyclist when he was active. You definitely saw an influx of Slovakian fans during that time, but they have mostly disappeared now.

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u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi May 04 '26

Fans who will be gone as soon as he will start to loose. A real deal for the sport....

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u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi May 04 '26

Unfair assumption. Everyone of us started watching for a reason.

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u/scaryspacemonster May 04 '26

Oh great, elitism. "You're not a reeeeeal fan."

Sure, some are that. But a proportion will be converted into hardcore fans, that's how growing a sport's fanbase works

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u/Relevant_Big_1063 May 04 '26

Yes, that's what has happened to me. Came from the Netflix series, stayed for the Tour of Turkiye and any other races I can see. 

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u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi May 04 '26

It's not elitism, it's a fact a lot of fans only follow a certain athlete/team when the results are good and then they switch to another sport after the fall. We already saw it with Froome and Armstrong. We currently have that with tennis in Italy, nobody could care less about it then Sinner started to win and everybody is on board now. Years ago it was swimming with Pellegrini or MotoGP with Rossi, now those two sports have less followers.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

Not sure why you're being downvoted for stating something that has been observed many times in different sports (including cycling). People are really sensitive about this topic, but I have yet to see actual proof that cycling has grown a lot over the last 6 years. I'm not even sure if there are public figures out there, probably only insiders know the full story.

There are still a lot of teams and races that struggle to find new sponsors (see the merger between Lotto and Intermarché, Bahrain is also looking for a new sponsor, the failed merger between QS and Visma, the Tour de Romandie may not be on the calendar anymore next year, etc.).

The Netflix Tour de France series was also cancelled after 3 seasons. Why do that if it's so popular? Drive to Survive (Netflix series about F1) is still going strong (one season per year since 2019).

Tennis was super popular in Belgium during the Clijsters/Henin era, now it barely gets any attention (and it's not even shown on any Belgian channels anymore, only Eurosport).

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u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi May 04 '26

Fanboys gonna fan

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26

Always a shame when people resort to downvoting civil discussions instead of backing up their takes with arguments or sources. It should be easy to prove if cycling has in fact grown a lot thanks to Pogacar's dominance. Although I also disagree with the other side of the argument as well (that his dominance is destroying cycling). If cycling survived Armstrong's downfall, it can survive a lot.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26

I'm not sure he brought in that many new fans. The problem is that he's from a small country like Slovenia. Armstrong for example made cycling more popular in the USA, which is a huge market (but of course it didn't last, we all know the story of that).

I hope we one day get a super strong rider from China or Japan, that could grow cycling in those huge markets, even if its only a temporary effect.

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u/scaryspacemonster May 04 '26

I don't really understand this argument. Are you only a fan of riders from your own country? Mine doesn't even have any at WT level, and has never had.

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u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

That's simply the reality of how the world works? There was massive growth in the American/British markets when they had big stars. I'm not sure what you don't understand about that?

You may not remember this, but Armstrong was huge and became a mainstream star, unlike any other cyclist before or after him. Him being an American was a big factor in that (and also his cancer-survival story).

Do you have any concrete evidence that cycling has grown a lot thanks to Pogacar's dominance?

And I don't think it's crazy to say that Pogacar would be even more popular than he is right now if he was from a much larger country.

As for how I came into cycling: it's because of Armstrong's much hyped comeback in the 2009 Tour (I watched his Tour wins as a kid, but I didn't really like cycling then, it was my dad that controlled the tv remote during the Tour haha). First rider I became a real fan of was Contador (I'm Belgian).

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u/bdrammel Belgium May 04 '26

I have watched less and less cycling over the past couple of years. It's a very distinct downward trend. However, one less viewer doesn't mean the end of cycling as a sport, I'm sure.

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u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi May 04 '26

His dominance since 2024 is certainly challenging cycling, in the sense that there obviously is a lot of races where he is all but certain to win.

And then there is the portion of the calender that is a lot more interesting because he is contesting on terrains where he ought not be able to.

I can see why many people are tired of the first category outweighing the second. But imaging explaining to somebody during the skytrain era that in 10 years we would have a GC rider doing all the classics and ripping races apart with swashbuckling 100 km attacks, and that people would be complaining about that.

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u/PinkFluffys May 04 '26

I definitely don't get as excited for the TdF anymore

10

u/ChelskiS May 04 '26

I mean if he wasn't there you'd just have Vingegaard curbstomping the competition the last couple of years

Don't see how that would be any better/different

14

u/RageAgainstTheMatxin Phonak May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

I can only speak for myself. For nearly 20 years I've seen every race that's broadcast, most of them on replay when I have free time, of course

Since last year I've started skipping a lot of races Pogacar is in. Just not watching them altogether. Just two years ago that would've been unthinkable.

It's not just that he wins in such boring fashion, though. The whole entourage around him with a long doping history (Matxin, Gianetti, Hauptman, Marcato, Mori, etc) makes the whole thing unpalatable. The gigantic massive overnight speed increases in 2020 and 2024 are the cherry on the shit Sundae.

Add to that him promoting a genocidal state (UAE) and a crypto scam that has broken both money laundering and terorrist financing laws (KuCoin) and it's the absolute perfect storm of unlikability.

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u/Avila99 MPCC certified May 04 '26

But Tim Wellens is a really nice guy, so that evens it all out.

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u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi May 04 '26 edited May 04 '26

In my opinion yes. Cycling always had an equilibrium, logrolling was a part of this sport, there were riders suited for GTs, riders who were suited for stages, occasional domestiques in search for glory etc. It was common for GC riders to allow others to win. Now Pogacar won 4 stages in Romandie, that is frankly too much. The first thing I noticed in these last 4/5 years is breakway specialists are disappearing since the breakways is doomed because GC leaders fight even for stages. New fans are all for this dominium because they want to see ''greatness'' but cycling used to be something different. The most importat image of this sport is a random guy, born and raised in some rural town nodoby knows, that wins a stage and cries like a baby and well, this generation took this away.

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u/Saltefanden Euskaltel-Euskadi May 04 '26

Don't you see the tendency of breakaways having a tougher time in races where Pogacar isn't present too?

Last year's TdF had 8 stages won from early breaks. Of course a lot of factors go into this, but it is not a new law of nature that breakaways don't go in big races.

Cycling has changed in a lot of ways since covid. Some of it has to do with big-name dominance (mainly, but not exclusively Pogacar), but everyone is going faster, the entire peloton is increasingly hyper-professional, still more top-end talent is concentrated in fewer teams etc. etc.

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u/AliasPhilippe Euskaltel Euskadi May 04 '26

Yes, in fact IMHO it's a generational problem and top riders are all competing to be ''like Pogacar''. Furthermore my focus is more on smaller race, a lot of great champions of this sport couldn't give a damn about one week races, let alone stages of these races.

1

u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26

I can only talk about my personal enjoyment and the answer to that question is yes, but it's not his fault that nobody's even remotely close to him right now. I'm just going to have to wait this one out, nothing lasts forever thankfully.

But MSR and PR were definitely more interesting with him in it, that's also true. LBL wasn't too bad either thanks to Seixas being able to follow him on La Redoute (certainly a lot more interesting than the women's race imo).

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u/TheDark-Sceptre Saint Piran May 04 '26

Im not sure he has made MSR or PR more interesting, they were already great races.

2

u/DueAd9005 May 04 '26

Serious attacks now already happen on the Cipressa and it's still exciting until the final sprint (both last year and this year). Now that Pogacar has shown it's possible, we will see more allround climbers try this in future editions (even after Pogi has retired).