CyclistWhat if Tadej Pogaar didnt exist?Tadej Pogaars cycling career began in the early 2000s just north of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana. On his street, a young Pogaar would ride his unicycle and put on shows for family and friends. That fascination with bikes spiralled into one of the most illustrious careers in the sports history.The 26-year-old has tasted glory 88 times since he turned professional at the beginning of 2019. Alongside his three Tour de France trophies, Pogaar has a Giro dItalia pink jersey, an Olympic medal, a whole host of Monument victories as well as a world title.However, what if there was a timeline where Tadej Pogaar never picked up that tricycle? Instead, he never took to cycling and instead pursued a career in banking or as a school teacher, for example. What would the sport look like without Tadej Pogaar? For this exercise, well remove all traces of Tadej Pogaar from the scoresheet in order to figure out what the sport would look like without him. Yes, this doesnt quite respect the way in which he influences race outcomes. Theres no way of knowing if a race would have been ridden the same way without him. For now, however, lets get our tinfoil hats on and start hypothesising.Jonas Vingegaard would be a four-time Tour winnerIf Tadej Pogaar decided to pick up a different career, wed have a four-time Tour winner in Jonas Vingegaard. Not only that, they would have been in consecutive years in rather dominant fashion free from the tight rivalry between himself and the Slovenian.From winning the race on debut in 2021 as a still relatively unknown rider embedded within the Jumbo-Visma lineup, Vingegaard would only grow into a more convincing Tour champion. Plus, with four Tour de France titles, Vingegaard would be within touching distance of becoming the youngest entrant into the exclusive club of riders to have won five Tours.On top of the extra GC wins, its likely that Vingegaards stage win tally would increase too. In the past four Tours, Vingegaard has finished runner-up to Pogaar on nine occasions. Add those nine wins to the count and Vingegaard would be on 13 Tour stage wins. Related Posts Pogaar vs Merckx: Who had the best season ever? GOAT Bingo: What does Tadej Pogaar still have left to win? Every Tadej Pogaar Grand Tour performance ranked Every Tadej Pogaar Monument performance ranked Wed live in a world where Primo Rogli would be a Tour de France championA.S.O./Alex BroadwayIm sure Primo Rogli would give an awful lot away to wipe the 2020 time-trial on La Planche des Belles Filles from his memory. Luckily, if Pogaar never rocked up to the Tour that year, Rogli would have won the 2020 Tour by over two minutes and his teammate Tom Dumoulin would have conquered La Planche on a day Jumbo-Visma celebrated a dominant Tour performance. Rogli would have been spared the drama and commotion of his surprise undoing. Instead, hed have rightfully won the 2020 Tour as many people expected beforehand.Would Roglis trajectory have changed if he had won the 2020 Tour? Almost certainly. His legacy and palmars would be held in a very different regard. As one of the most decorated riders of the current era without a Tour win, the maillot jaune has continued to be the thorn in his side. Alongside his Vuelta and Monument wins in 2020, a Tour triumph would have secured this season its place in the cycling archives for years to come.Regardless, Rogli would only win one Tour in this alternative timeline. Removing Pogaar from the peloton doesnt change Roglis habit of crashing out of the race. However, with this 2020 victory, he would have won every Grand Tour in the sport by 2023. Mikel Landa would have moved up to third too.Enric Mas would have won a Monument and Mathieu van der Poel would have set a new record in FlandersDario Belingheri/Getty ImagesThroughout his short career, Pogaar has already claimed seven Monuments: four in Lombardy, two in Lige and one in Flanders. In his absence, we would have had a whole host of new Monument men.Sans Pogaar, Il Lombardia would have had an interesting selection of winners. Enric Mas would have silenced critics at the 2022 edition, and QuickStep men Fausto Masnada and Andrea Bagioli would have dished up two surprise home victories. Plus, we were robbed this year of seeing Remco Evenepoel win the race that almost ended his career back in 2020.At Lige-Bastogne-Lige, Pogaar blocked French hopes in 2021 and 2024. Julian Alaphilippe would have finally won the Ardennais Monument in 2021 and Romain Bardet would have claimed a Monument this year in what would have been a very popular win.Lastly, Pogaars presence has derailed Mathieu van der Poels journey towards breaking the shared record of three Tour of Flanders wins. Without Pogaars remarkable win in 2023, wed have seen the record number of wins smashed by Van der Poel this spring. With the rainbow jersey and bike aloft in the air, this would have been another record-breaking heroic to add to the 2024 season. Tom Pidcock and Dani Martnez would be Grand Tour jersey winnersBehind every victory in Pogaars palmars is a runner-up. Beyond Tour de France titles and Monuments, a real range of riders would have reached new heights if it werent for his presence.The polka-dot jersey at the 2020 and 2021 Tours de France would have gone the way of the breakaway. Rightfully so, I might add. Richard Carapaz and Wout Poels would have won those. Between 2020 and 2023, the white jersey would have been passed around several future stars. Enric Mas, Vingegaard, Tom Pidcock and Carlos Rodrguez would have all won the young riders maillot blanc.If youre looking for other jersey wearers, Evenepoel, Neilson Powless, Lennard Kmna, Ben OConnor and Rigoberto Urn would have all spent at least a day in the Tours coveted maillot jaune.With a Pogaar-shaped hole on the startlist, Alaphilippe would have finally won Lige-Bastogne-Lige and Bauke Mollema would have taken an Olympic medal back in 2021. Similarly, we were deprived of a heros farewell for Alejandro Valverde who was denied victory in his last Strade Bianche in 2022. To add, David Gaudu would have claimed the 2023 Paris-Nice title and Ben Healy would have won a tough edition of Amstel Gold that year.We cant ignore the fact that Dani Martnez would have won the Giros pink jersey this year if it werent for Tadej Pogaar either.Ben OConnor would have podiumed all three Grand Tours, worn the yellow jersey and become World ChampionUnipublic/Sprint Cycling AgencyThe main beneficiary from this Pogaar blackout would be Australias Ben OConnor. Without Pogaar on the startline, OConnor would have become one of the most decorated Grand Tour riders of the 2020s so far. The Decathlon-AG2R rider would have finished on the podium of all three Grand Tours if Pogaar wasnt there to rain on his parade. The first of these would have come at the 2021 Tour de France where he would have moved up into third place. He would also have gone on to wear the yellow jersey for two stages that year.2024 would have seen a big improvement. At the real Giro, OConnor was edged into fourth, but counting out Pogaar, the Perth-born rider would have made it onto the podium. Whats more, a last-chance attack at the World Championships paved the way for OConnor to finish runner-up behind the eventual winner Pogaar. Therefore, can we dare suggest that OConnor would have won the rainbow jersey under these Pogaar-less circumstances? We can only dream.Wout van Aert would have topped the UCI rankingsChris AuldTo look broadly at who the seasons stars would have been without Pogaar around, lets take the UCI rankings into account.For the individual rider rankings, things would look very different at the top. Pogaar has been the top-scoring rider in the UCI rankings each year since 2021. Removing the Slovenian from the equation brings a much fiercer ding-dong for the top of the UCI leaderboard.With the 2024 mens road season completed for the pelotons figureheads, we can see that Evenepoel would comfortably top the UCI rankings if it werent for a certain Slovenian. Last year, the then-Tour champion Vingegaard would have added a UCI rankings title to his trophy cabinet. 2022 would have been a tight battle between Wout van Aert and Evenepoel at the top, however, 2021 would have safely been in the hands of Van Aert.In the team rankings, Pogaar strips some points from the UAE Team Emirates total haul over the past four seasons. They would have missed out on their 2023 top spot. In total, the Slovenian brought in 24.8% of the teams total points score. In 2022, this share increases to 38.4%. Without Pogaars mammoth points score in 2022, UAE Team Emirates would have finished in sixth place in the UCI team rankings.The Pogaar-less landscapeA.S.O./Billy CeustersWithout Pogaar in the pro peloton, the sport would undoubtedly be in a very different place. Wed see Chris Froome-like domination of the Tour de France courtesy of Vingegaard being miles ahead of his Tour opponents. On the other hand, Il Lombardia would become a much more open race and, to be honest, a more exciting race too.UAE Team Emirates would likely not be as strong. Perhaps without a Pogaar figure, the team would not have brought in the likes of Joo Almeida and Adam Yates. Instead, the team might have carried on the same course they had before as a mismatched squad during the late 2010s. However, for the sake of keeping this simple, it would be fascinating to see an Almeida-led Tour roster.Id also suspect that Jumbo-Visma would have grown into the unchallenged leaders of the pack. After storming to the top of the Tour standings from 2020 until 2024 in this alternative timeline, the Dutch team would seem insurmountable in the Grand Tours very similar to that of Team Sky during the 2010s. I think we can agree that wouldnt necessarily be a good thing for the sport.On the other hand, I think more interest and attention would be given towards Evenepoel in this timeline. With no Pogaar to break the mould, Evenepoel would be seen even more as the intriguing generational talent akin to Eddy Merckx. His efforts in the Classics and Grand Tours would be heralded, and Evenepoel would be claimed as the most all-around cyclist in the world. However Pogaar is very much existent and is the greatest cyclist of the 21st century. Sorry Remco. Related Posts Pogaar vs Merckx: Who had the best season ever? GOAT Bingo: What does Tadej Pogaar still have left to win? Every Tadej Pogaar Grand Tour performance ranked Every Tadej Pogaar Monument performance ranked The post What if Tadej Pogaar didnt exist? appeared first on Cyclist.