If there was any lingering doubt about Tadej Pogačar’s place among cycling’s all-time greats, his breathtaking victory at Milan-San Remo has likely dispelled it. Despite crashing before the Cipressa, heroically chasing back, and then decisively detonating the race, Pogačar delivered a performance that was a captivating blend of chaos, control, and surgical precision. Beyond this headline-grabbing win, the past weekend offered numerous other insights: a masterclass in course design, critical safety warnings from crashes in the women’s race, fresh ideas in sports media thanks to the Cape Epic, and broader questions about athlete power and the future leadership within cycling.
On the Ligurian coast, Tadej Pogačar finally conquered one of cycling’s most stubborn puzzles – winning the 2026 Milan-San Remo. This performance is set to define not only his 2026 season but also his enduring place in history. After a fall before the base of the renowned Cipressa climb – at the race’s most critical juncture – Pogačar executed one of the most stunning comebacks in modern cycling. Calmly remounting, he meticulously paced his way back through the peloton with the aid of his UAE teammates, immediately regaining control. He then launched a decisive move on the Cipressa that only Tom Pidcock and Mathieu van der Poel could match. By the Poggio climb, however, the cumulative effect of UAE’s relentless pace had taken its toll; Pogačar managed to drop Van der Poel and then outsprinted Pidcock on the Via Roma to secure a narrow victory – his first in cycling’s longest and most tactically elusive Monument. He thus took a significant stride towards completing the career “Monument sweep,” an achievement shared by only three riders: Eddy Merckx, Roger De Vlaeminck, and Rik Van Looy. He also kept alive, for the moment, the far more remote possibility of a single-season Monument sweep.
More than just another win for Pogačar, this was a clear demonstration of the control, resilience, and precision under pressure that now characterize his career – a victory that further cements his growing dominance in the sport. With eleven career Monument victories at just 27 years of age, Pogačar now ranks second on the all-time list behind Eddy Merckx and, at his current pace, is on track to equal or even surpass Merckx’s benchmark of 19 by the end of the decade. What once felt like a theoretical debate is rapidly becoming a practical one. The discussion is no longer about whether Pogačar belongs among the greatest riders of all time; rather, it’s about whether he will ultimately surpass the sport’s most enduring benchmark – Eddy Merckx – to become universally recognized as the greatest rider in history.
Recognition and visibility for Pogačar’s accomplishments are beginning to extend beyond the niche cycling world, even drawing attention in the Yahoo Sports newsletter, which typically doesn’t cover professional cycling. The summary highlighted Pogačar’s “comically” successful career, reiterating that to match Eddy Merckx’s career, he only needs victories at the Vuelta and Paris-Roubaix. Some observers have already made up their minds; the article quoted former British champion Adam Blythe stating that “we throw the term around, but he is the greatest of all time without a shadow of a doubt. There is no rider we can compare to him. He is just untouchable.”
Beyond the historical implications, the race also served to counter the growing narrative that Pogačar’s dominance drains the sport of uncertainty or excitement. Instead, the final 30 kilometers of MSR delivered one of the most compelling spectacles in recent memory, with nearly all of the sport’s top riders in contention, each with plausible paths to victory. Even in defeat, the chasing pack offered intriguing signals for the months ahead – with Pidcock seemingly unlocking a new ceiling in these hybrid finales, Van Aert returning to the podium after ankle surgery with a late charge that nearly closed the gap, and Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen orchestrating a disciplined chase that hinted at a potential blueprint to challenge Pogačar’s long-range attacks in the future. Just as importantly, the race reaffirmed that its comparatively “mild” course – an anomaly in an era of ever-increasing difficulty – remains one of the sport’s most effective course designs, keeping a wider range of riders competitive and compelling even the strongest to take risks to win.
The Milan-San Remo women’s race was unfortunately marred by crashes, which not only influenced the outcome by disrupting race tactics but also sent Italian rider Debora Silvestri to the emergency room. Her spectacular head-first tumble over a road barrier on the Cipressa vividly underscored the inherent dangers of open road racing for both participants and spectators, even more so than the incident that delayed many men’s favorites later that day. Silvestri was attempting to avoid a crash that brought down other favorites like Kasia Niewiadoma Phinney. When the race reformed, Lotte Kopecky of SD Worx-Protime powered to a brilliant sprint victory over a reduced group including Noemi Rüegg (EF) and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Premier Tech). Kopecky has built an impressive palmares of road wins over the past five seasons and has improved as a climber to the extent that she will be a serious challenger in both the Flemish and Ardennes Classics this April. How effectively she shares team leadership with Anna van der Breggen, a former Flanders champion and multiple Ardennes winner herself, remains to be seen, but it will be an exciting subplot to watch as the Women’s WorldTour continues to heat up.
South Africa was an unexpected focal point in the sporting universe last week, hosting both the LIV Golf tournament and the Cape Epic mountain bike stage race. LIV Golf continued to be a disruptive force in championship golf, with PGA Tour star Bryson DeChambeau winning the Johannesburg stop in an thrilling playoff, selling over 90,000 tickets to raucous fans. Meanwhile, the Cape Epic presented riders with an exceptionally challenging route across the Karoo region, culminating in three stages in the Stellenbosch wine country. The “home” team of Matthew Beers and Tristan Nortje triumphed in the men’s Elite division, while Candice Lill and Alessandra Keller secured the women’s honors. The race’s format (2-person teams), diverse terrain, and high difficulty made for captivating viewing. While streamed for free on YouTube, what truly stood out was the post-live production of race highlights. The production team masterfully stitched together cohesive storytelling across the seven stages, blending human interest segments, key racing moments, and details about the region, race organization, and sponsors. This approach, frankly, hasn’t been executed this well since CBS and ABC produced Tour de France weekend highlight shows in the late 1980s. Professional road cycling content producers would do well to study these summaries and seek opportunities to enhance their broadcast output beyond live presentations to delight existing fans and inspire new ones.
Collegiate athletics has transformed into a multi-billion-dollar sports entertainment powerhouse following NIL (Name, Image, Likeness) rulings and the House vs. NCAA case, which completely upended its economics and traditional structure. Yet, NCAA leaders have persistently lobbied Congress and even courted the President to prevent athletes from being recognized as university employees, unionizing, or gaining greater power within the evolving system. A recent article in Front Office Sports highlighted numerous reasons why athletes should seize this moment to unionize and negotiate a collective bargaining agreement. According to former National Labor Relations Board general counsel Jennifer Abruzzo, the players’ “labor is what allows this profit-making enterprise to exist.” Key objectives of unionization and a Collective Bargaining Agreement include a larger share of revenue, improved health and safety provisions, and a seat at the leadership table to steer decision-making impacting athlete freedom of movement and academic opportunities. In professional cycling, the central impediment to progress is that the UCI does not grant rider representation a voting seat on any of its key committees, offering only an advisory presence. Thus, we can observe a parallel to what may unfold in the NCAA as athletes mobilize for legal status and unionization. The crucial question for professional cycling is: what critical event needs to transpire for riders to rally behind a strong leader and challenge the UCI – to move beyond so-called “joint agreements” and achieve the kind of real, transformative changes that collective bargaining agreements have yielded for athletes in nearly every league sport globally?
Last week, the annual Bicycle Leadership Conference (BLC) convened in Dana Point, California. This gathering, organized by the bike industry trade and advocacy organization PeopleForBikes, brings together executives from around the world. This year’s event featured Giant Group CEO Phoebe Liu, SRAM CEO Ken Lousberg, and keynotes from former Airbnb executive Chip Conley and former Tesla President Jon McNeill. The two predominant topics at BLC were e-bikes and cycling infrastructure. As e-bikes have gained global popularity, regulation has become increasingly important: speed limits, battery safety, and the emerging eMoto category are all issues being addressed at both state and local levels. The entire industry now recognizes that sustained growth is impossible without safe spaces for people to ride. While federal spending on bike and pedestrian infrastructure in the U.S. has seen a three to fourfold increase over the past two decades, it still falls significantly short of the levels needed to match European cities. London’s initiatives around the 2012 Olympics and Paris’s transformation into a bikeable city coinciding with the 2024 Games were cited as inspirations for Los Angeles 2028. However, with numerous hurdles to overcome before the LA28 Games, it remains uncertain if the city can establish the necessary infrastructure to accommodate the anticipated influx of tourists and athletes.