Stephen Roche has said though it took 37 years before another rider won the Giro, Tour and Worlds in one season, he believes at least three other riders were capable of doing it in the intervening period, and naming them.
Roche was on hand in Zurich on Sunday when Tadej Pogačar claimed the world title, and completing the triple crown; the first to do so since Ireland's Roche in 1987 and first Slovenian to ever win the Worlds.
Slovenia now also holds the Giro, Tour, Vuelta and Worlds - after Primož Roglič won the Vuelta last month. That honour also fell to Irish cycling in 1988, with Roche had achieved his triple crown in 1987 and Kelly then won the Vuelta the following season. Back then, the Vuelta was an early season fixture and was the first Grand Tour of the year.
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"I feel like I'm in a sandwich now between Merckx and Pogačar which is not bad. But I think it's really great because it makes the whole thing a little more human," Roche told the NOS, the Dutch TV station.
"It's 37 years since I won it, I was 13 years after Merckx, but everybody was saying it's not possible - 'A new era', 'Different generations', 'It can't be done again'.
"I believe records are there to be broken and beaten and improved upon, so for me, it's great that it's this particular person that has done the triple and I'm delighted to be here to give him the keys to the house."
After being on hand after the medal presentation, Roche greeted Pogačar backstage, posing for photos as the baton passed from one generation to the next.
And the Irishman was clearly very impressed by the manner of Pogačar's win; going on the attack with 100km to go and having less than one minute for much of that distance as he was chased hard by Ben Healy (Ireland) and Toms Skujiņš (Latvia).
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"What a ride. You can't describe the superhuman effort he's done," said Roche of Pogačar. If it was the first time we'd seen this, I'd have said it was suicide, but we've seen him do this before.
"Just out of feel in his heart and his soul, he goes. He doesn't think or question 'Should I? Do I? Who's looking?', and he's confident and he will carry it out till the end, and he did.
"Of course when I saw him going, I'm saying maybe myself and Eddy Merckx might stay another little while in the seat of triple crown winners but we knew Pogi even going far is not suicide for him because he's done it before."
But the significance of Pogačar taking the triple crown was the thing that impressed Roche most, even though nobody spoke of it when Eddy Merck did it first in 1974. It only became a talking point 13 years later when Roche became the second rider to win the big three in one season.
"It's not because it's taken 37 years for Pogačar to do it, that there haven't been other guys capable of doing it like Froome, Indurain, Armstrong, these guys could have all done it," said Roche.
"But these guys are a certain kind of categorised rider, so if you get a flat World Championships, generally the guy that's won the Giro and the Tour hasn't got a fast enough sprint to beat the real sprinters so he's automatically at a handicap.
"Whereas this year, all the stars have lined up, the Giro and Tour were good for Pogačar and we had a World Championships like we have today.
"It's impossible to have a circuit like today every year because you're favouring a certain category of rider so for once, this was Pogacar's year to do it. It may not happen again for a few years but this was his year."
