More than half a century after he took the Hour Record, Eddy Merckx has flung down the gauntlet on behalf of two of cycling's top stars, and suggested both Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) try for one of the sport's most venerated challenges.
Merckx made the suggestion in Belgian newspaper Le Soir, during one of multiple media interviews to commemorate his 80th birthday this June.
Currently held by Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) with a distance of 56.792 kilometres, back in October 1972 Merckx set the Hour Record at 49.431 kilometres.
Both before and after Merckx, other top Tour de France winners and GC contenders have tried for the Hour Record, most recently 2012 Tour champion Bradley Wiggins, but before the Briton, Merckx, Miguel Indurain, and Jacques Anquetil, amongst others.
"My career would not be complete without the Record," Merckx told Le Soir. "At the end of 1972, I felt tired, I wasn't in form, but after three weeks of specific preparation in Italy, I was recovered.
"We crossed the Atlantic to Mexico and it all worked out well. But I suffered a lot. After that effort, I could barely walk for a week."
As for whether Evenepoel or Pogačar could be better at the Hour Record, Merckx said he was not sure.
"The Slovenian is the best, the most versatile rider out there. But Remco has incredible aerodynamics. It would be wonderful if they tried this challenge."
While Evenepoel has not discussed doing the Hour Record, in the case of Pogačar, at least, Merckx's idea looks very unlikely to happen.
When Cyclingnews specifically asked UAE Team Emirates sports manager Joxean Fernández Matxin back in January about Pogačar going for the Hour Record one day, Matxin dismissed the idea that there could be any interest in such a project. He said that they had never discussed Pogačar taking part in any kind of track event, let alone such a major challenge.
"With Pogačar, it's a very different kind of cycling," Matxin told Cyclingnews. "To tell you the truth, ever since I first met him in 2017, we've never once talked about track racing at all. Never. It's never come into our conversation, neither on his part, or mine, or the team's."
Merckx, in any case, insisted in Le Soir that when it came to the Tour de France, Pogačar remained "The man to beat. What I saw him do this spring was impressive. I hope that [Jonas] Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is going better than at the start of the year, he wasn't doing great before he fell in Paris-Nice.
"Remco hasn't raced so much since his accident in December, he can have a lot of energy stored up. But in the high mountains, following the World Champion [Pogačar] won't be easy."
