Bernard Hinault has said that it is far from impossible that Tadej Pogačar will end up not only becoming the first-ever rider to win six Tours de France, but that the UAE Team Emirates racer may end up pushing the current all-time record even higher.
Himself the winner of five Tours de France - a total that only the Frenchman, Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil and Miguel Indurain have so far achieved in the history of the sport - Hinault made the prediction during a series of celebrations for his 70th birthday.
As outspoken as ever, Hinault also told Italian newspaper La Gazzetta dello Sport that he believes Pogačar will be the first racer to win three Grand Tours in a single year, and that he currently does not see any French rider capable of winning the Tour de France.
Hinault even went so far as to say that barring the usual caveats of crashes or illnesses, "Pogačar will be able to take all kinds of records. Who" - he asked rhetorically - "will be able to stop him?"
To celebrate his 70th birthday, Hinault held a dinner for 130 guests in his home region of Brittany including former cycling stars like Tour de France winners Joop Zoetemelk and Bernard Thévenet. Eddy Merckx, himself set to turn 80 next year, was also invited but could not attend.
On the personal front, Hinault revealed in the same interview he himself now uses an E-bike for his training. But the Frenchman added that he keenly follows the current racing scene, even though he stopped carrying out an MC role for the Tour de France organisers ASO nearly a decade ago.
Asked about similarities between modern-day cycling, the Eddy Merckx era and his own, Hinault argued that "Just like us, the top-level riders of today don't ask themselves too many questions. They start and finish the season flat out and they finish it in the same way."
Whether that meant that Pogačar, for one, would overhaul Hinault and Merckx's achievements in the sport, Hinault said that "if there are no unforeseen circumstances, he'll do it without any problems. What he has done already speaks for itself."
"In my opinion, more than anything else, what impresses me is that he has already won three Tours at the age of 26. And those that he's lost, he's finished second. It's far from out of the question to think that he can reach at least six [Tour wins]."
Hinault was the last Frenchman to win the Tour, back in 1985, and he argued that currently no French rider has the calibre necessary to try and win the Tour, let alone succeed. "Maybe my 'successor' is born now, but he's still not riding a bike," he insisted.
A legend in his own right?
Asked by La Gazzetta dello Sport if he still had the conception of being a legend in cycling, Hinault replied with a question of his own - "But is it really for sure that I am one, now?"
"I was one [a legend] during my own era, as was Merckx, and in general each period of cycling history had reference points - Coppi, Bartali, Anquetil, Bobet before me, and then afterwards Indurain. Each person has their place, in a certain moment.
"But I don't have any regrets. I stopped racing early, at 32, but I was lucky enough to be able to decide for myself, at a point when my desire to continue had faded away. Not everybody understood it at the time - in fact, I'd say barely anybody."
And for all his conviction that Pogačar will "finish ahead of me and Merckx" - the winners of the most Grand Tours in history, with 11 and 10 respectively - Hinault said he personally had had no desire to go for the record of six Tours de France.
"No," he said, "because if I had wanted to get the record, I would have continued to race. And that's what I didn't do."
