24/12/2025

SPORTS WEDNESDAY | DEC 24, 2025 28 T ADEJ POGACAR spent 2025 stretching cycling’s sense of proportion, not by loudly chas ing history but by quietly invit ing comparison with it. As the season unfolded, references to the great Eddy Merckx – once whis pered, now unavoidable – stopped sounding indulgent and began to serve a practical purpose: a way of describing a rider whose authority extends across terrains, months and race types. At the heart of it all sat a fourth Tour de France title – one short of the record – the race Merckx himself treated as cycling’s ultimate currency. Pogacar’s latest triumph in July did more than add to an already heavily garnished trophy cabinet, it reinforced the Tour as the axis of his dominance. The UAE Emirates rider controlled the general classification with clarity and flamboyance rather than caution, asserted himself in the high moun tains, claimed the polka-dot jersey and closed the race by winning the final individual time trial. In an era defined by control and risk management, he made the Tour feel unusually open – and unusually set tled. The Merckx comparison, however, comes with caveats, starting with the man himself. “It is difficult to compare two differ ent eras,” the Belgian said, before add ing, almost casually, that his own may have been tougher. “I think that in my time there was more competition. Today, in the clas sics, Pogacar mainly has to watch out for (Mathieu) Van der Poel and (Wout) Van Aert. In the Grand Tours, it’s a few other rivals.” Merckx claimed 525 career victo ries. Pogacar needed roughly five sea sons to reach the 100-win mark. Even at his current, remarkably high rate, the Slovenian would need to keep winning at the same pace for another two dec ades to approach the Belgian’s total – an impossibility. Where the parallel persists is else where. Like Merckx, Pogacar has spent the season erasing the modern borders between stage racing and the classics. His Tour de France victory was not an isolated peak, but the natural high point of a campaign built on constant presence with titles in the Tour of

‘Pogi’ in GOAT territory After a stellar season, Slovenian’s dominant 2025 cycling season across various race types has drawn comparisons to cycling great Merckx

Belgian cycling great Eddy Merckx (top) during his competitive days and his present self (below).

COMPETITIONS

Flanders, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Giro di Lombardia Monument classics. He arrived in July having already shaped the spring, moving

the most revered classic races - remain unchecked: Milan–Sanremo and Paris–Roubaix. This season, he came close to both, finishing on the Sanremo podium and second on the Roubaix velodrome. They stand less as gaps than reminders that, even as comparisons with Merckx grow, Pogacar’s story is still being written. – Reuters

Pogacar did so without defensive ness, racing as though expectation was something to exploit rather than manage. At 27, the outline of his legacy is already strikingly complete, even if he has yet to claim the Vuelta, a grand tour he is almost guaranteed to win if he takes the start. Only two of the five Monuments -

impose himself. That posture framed the Tour itself. There was no sense of a rider hiding form or narrowing objec tives. Instead, the race unfolded with the strongest rider expected to prove it repeatedly and pub licly.

seamlessly from white roads to cobbles and steep one-day fin ishes, rarely racing to limit losses and more often to

No timetable

for return, says Woods

TIGER WOODS said recently that recovery from his latest back surgery has not gone as quickly as he wanted, stating it was too soon to set a target date for a return to action. The 15-time major champion, who will turn 50 on Dec 30, underwent disc replacement surgery in October, the latest in a series of operations and

fered a ruptured Achilles tendon. Woods said while he had started chipping and putting, he was bracing for a lengthy rehabilita tion from surgery. “I just got cleared last week to chip and putt so it’s good,” he said. “It’s been slow. Not able to do much on a disc replacement to let it set. Can’t really do much. “Now we got the OK to start cranking up a lit tle bit in the gym, started strengthening and started doing a little bit more of the rotational component that I haven’t been able to do. Just letting the disc kind of set.” Asked if he was targeting a possible return at the Genesis Invitational in Los Angeles in February 2026, Woods added: “As I said, I don’t know… A disc replacement takes time. It’s longer – it’s not as long as a fusion, thank God, but it’s going to take time.” Woods was adamant though that he remains determined to return to the golf course. “I’d like to come back to just playing golf again,” he said. “I haven’t played golf in a long time. It’s been a tough year. “I’ve had a lot of things happen on and off the golf course that’s been tough. And so my passion to just play, I haven’t done that in a long time. Just play.” – AFP

tournament schedule in 2026, Woods said he was still “a ways” from determining a timetable for his return. “I’m just looking forward to just let me get back to playing again, let me do that and then I’ll kind of figure out what the schedule is going to be,”Woods said. “I’m a ways away from that part of it and that type of decision, that type of commitment level. “Unfortunately, I’ve been through this rehab process before, it’s just step by step. Once I get a feel for practicing, explod ing, playing, the recovery process, then I can assess where I’m going to play and how much I’ll play.”

injuries that have kept him side lined since the 2024 British Open. Speaking at his Hero World Challenge tournament in the Bahamas on Dec 2, the former world No. 1 revealed that he had recently been cleared to try chipping and putting, but had no idea of when he may return to competitive action. “It’s not as fast as I’d like it to be,” Woods replied when asked about the pace of his recovery from what was the seventh opera tion on his back. “It was a good thing to do, some thing I needed to have happen and it just takes time and dedication to the rehab process.” Asked if he had an idea of his likely

Woods suffered severe leg injuries in a 2021 car crash but returned at the 2022 Masters and finished 47th. The veteran super star had a back opera tion in September 2024 and was rehabilitating from that setback when he announced in March that he had suf