Stephen Roche: 'Hopefully I can personally hand Pogačar the keys to the 'Triple Crown of Cycling' club'

The last man to achieve the 'Triple Crown' of the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and World Championship road race, Ireland's Stephen Roche, has congratulated Tadej Pogačar on joining a 'club trois' of male winners, along with himself and Eddy Merckx.

Roche said he hoped to see Pogačar again soon and "hand him the keys to the 'Triple Crown of Cycling' club."

"It's been 37 years since I managed to do it," Roche told Dutch outlet NOS. "And Eddy Merckx managed it thirteen years before that.

"All those years I've had to hear that something like that would be impossible in these times. But it is possible after all. The fact that Pogačar managed it makes our achievement more human. But that required a superhuman achievement."

Pogačar sealed the triple last Sunday in Zurich's World Championship road race, astounding fans and rivals alike by attacking with 100km to go and holding off the field, largely single handedly, until the finish.

Pogačar, Roche and Merckx are not the only riders to have won this coveted trio of races. Annemiek van Vleuten did the same in 2022 and, in fact, went one better by winning the Vuelta as well.

Stephen Roche achieved the feat in 1987, in what was his annus mirabilis – a level he had never reached before and would never do so again. Eddy Merckx did the Giro-Tour double three times but only added the World Championships in 1974, when he beat Raymond Poulidor (who else?) and Mariano Martínez into second and third in Montreal.

"Pogacar is very welcome in our club," Roche said. "I would like to welcome him myself. If possible."

He added: "I'm now sandwiched between Eddy Merckx and Tadej Pogačar and that's not bad at all. Hopefully I can see Pogačar again and personally hand him the keys to the 'Triple Crown of Cycling' club."

Merckx has also offered his congratulations to Pogačar, saying after Sunday's ride that the Slovenian should now be considered the all-time greatest rider.

“It’s obvious that he is now above me,” Merckx said of Pogačar when contacted by the French newspaper. “Deep down, I already thought as much when I saw what he did on the last Tour de France, but tonight there’s no more doubt about it.”

“I didn’t attack with 100 kilometres to go in a World Championship, but what he has done is unimaginable. It’s something we’ll remember for a very long time. 

For so many years, it looked as though no male cyclist would ever achieve it again, with recent Grand Tour winners like Chris Froome and Egan Bernal lacking, at the very least, the inclination to make a long, attritional one-day race like the World Championship a major focus.