Stephen Roche, the last male winner of cycling's Triple Crown, said as he became only the third man in history to win the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France, and World Championships in the same season, following the Irishman and Eddy Merckx, “Tadei Pogachal I welcome him to the club.” [Annemieke van Fluten won the only women's triple crown in 2022, with a 100km attack in Zurich on Sunday, followed by a 50km solo run.

In Switzerland, Roche congratulated Pogačar, the first Slovenian world champion, with a post-race hug and a photo opportunity in the mixed zone with three fingers held up to symbolize the triple crown.

“I feel like I'm caught between Merckx and Pogachar. I feel like I'm caught between Merckx and Pogachar. [It's been 37 years since I won the championship, 13 years after Merckx. But everyone said, 'It's a new era,' 'It's a different generation,' 'It can't happen again.' [I believe that records are meant to be broken, beaten, and improved upon.

Like many of Pogachar's competitors that day, Roche was stunned by the 26-year-old's detached ability after he made a bold move out of the peloton and committed to a long-distance move that resembled a Merckx generation race.

“What a run. Words can't even begin to describe his superhuman effort.

“If it had been my first time seeing this spectacle, I would have said it was suicide. He just went with what his heart and soul felt. He didn't think, 'Should I? And he is convinced, and he goes through to the end.

“Of course, when we saw him go, I and Eddy Merckx said he might stay on the Triple Crown for a while longer, but we knew that Pogi wasn't suicidal to even go far.

Roche believes that there are other riders in recent memory who could win the Triple Crown, but there has never been a year when all three parcours were perfect, or when a rider could perfectly duplicate what Merckx first achieved in the 1974 season. It is fitting that Pogachar, who suggested that Merckx, the greatest rider in the history of the sport, had surpassed him in that title, was the next to achieve it.

“Just because it took Pogachar 37 years doesn't mean there weren't others who could have done it, like Froome, Indurain, and Armstrong.

“But these are categorized athletes of a sort, and when you have a flat world championship, you are automatically at a handicap, because generally the riders who win the Giro and Tour don't have sprints fast enough to beat a real sprinter.

“This year, by contrast, all the stars were in place, the Giro and Tour were good for Pogachar, and there were world championships like the one today. It is impossible to have a world championship like today's every year because it favors certain categories of riders. For Pogachar, this year was that year.