>There is no doubt in his mind that Pogačar is the best rider who ever lived, Michael Woods told Cycling Weekly last week.
>Comparing the landscape in which the two riders have raced makes the comparison even more stark, multiple Grand Tour stage winner Woods, who at 39 is retiring from Israel-Premier Tech at the end of this season, explained.
>"Merckx was competing when there were only four billion people on the planet," he said. "And only four countries were good at it… and there were guys he was racing against who were still working.
>These days, that figure of four billion has grown – slightly alarmingly in such as short period of time – to a shade over eight billion.
>"The fact that Pogačar's as good as he is with this level of depth, with this pool of talent that's being drawn from, it's vastly superior, vastly superior," the Canadian surmised.
>"It becomes not as fun when you have less of an opposition, so I certainly believe. So I don't foresee Pogačar racing into his late-30s. But, you never know. Like, he doesn't need to. He can stop tomorrow. And in my mind, he's the greatest cyclist that's ever lived."
>"You even saw it with [Peter] Sagan," Woods added. "Sagan just got bored. You could tell he was just doing it as a job. And when you're an athlete like Pogačar and Sagan… these guys want to be pushing the limits and testing themselves."