Bernard Hinault says he does not know who would win a race between himself, Eddy Merckx and Tadej Pogacar, a question renewed by Pogacar’s fifth Tour de France victory on July 26 in Paris.
Speaking to La Gazzetta dello Sport, the five-time Tour winner said roads, equipment, training methods and nutrition had all changed too much for comparisons across eras to be meaningful. He said it was absurd to compare climbing times separated by decades and that each rider was the number one of his own era.
That caveat aside, Hinault was willing to engage with the fantasy matchup. He said it was every champion’s dream to meet rivals at the same moment under equal conditions. He added that he and Merckx would not start already beaten, and that if they had crossed Pogacar’s path they would certainly have trained even harder to beat him. Asked to pick a winner, he admitted he simply did not know.
Where Merckx leads
On paper, Merckx holds the edge outside the Tour. All three men have won cycling’s biggest race five times. But the Belgian also took five Tours d’Italie (1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974) and one Tour d’Espagne (1973). Hinault won three Giros (1980, 1982, 1985) and two Vueltas (1978 and 1983). Pogacar has one Giro title (2024) and reached the podium on his first Grand Tour appearance, the 2019 Vuelta. A 2026 Vuelta start is described as imminent, with Pogacar expected to go as a heavy favourite.
Merckx also leads in one-day classics with 27 victories, ahead of Pogacar on 22 and Hinault on 8. The Belgian holds three world road race titles (1967, 1971, 1974), against Hinault’s one (1980) and Pogacar’s two (2024 and 2025).
Hinault on Pogacar’s future
Hinault was enthusiastic about the 27-year-old, who leads UAE Team Emirates XRG and won this year’s Tour by six minutes and 26 seconds over Remco Evenepoel. He described Pogacar’s cycling as poetry and said the Slovenian had never stopped improving. Hinault predicted three or four more dominant seasons, saying physical fatigue was not a worry because Pogacar knew how to manage it, but that mental wear was the one thing that could eventually trouble him.
