Tadej Pogacar's cycling supremacy is such that few riders can even challenge him
PARIS (AP) — Tadej Pogacar's record-equaling fifth Tour de France title puts him among the greatest cyclists in the sport, and he could become the best of all in years to come.
After Sunday's 21st and final stage in Paris, the 27-year-old Slovenian joined Belgian Eddy Merckx, Spaniard Miguel Indurain, and Frenchmen Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault as the only riders to win five Tour titles.
Pogacar finished 6 minutes, 26 seconds ahead of Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel, a time trial great, in the overall standings.
Jonas Vingegaard, who was once Pogacar's big rival, crashed out of the race on the 15th stage. Vingegaard, a former fish factory worker from Denmark, won the Tour in 2022 and ' 23. For his second title, he beat Pogacar by more than seven minutes in a result that put them level at 2-2 for Tour titles.
Pogacar has since won the Tour three straight times. Vingegaard, despite clinching the Spanish Vuelta last September and the Giro d'Italia earlier this year, barely mustered a challenge at this Tour. He did briefly wear the yellow jersey, but that was thanks to a team effort after Visma-Lease a Bike team won the opening-day team time trial in Barcelona.
Pogacar won five stages and now has 26 overall. He still needs 10 stage wins to break Mark Cavendish’s Tour record of 35. That may take two years given that Pogacar’s best in a single edition is six, during the 2024 Tour.
Vingegaard is 29 and has time to win more Tours, but needs to find a way to challenge Pogacar again in the high climbs.
Otherwise, the list of contenders is slim.
Paul Seixas carries the renewed hopes of French supporters, 41 years after the last of Hinault's wins. The 19-year-old Seixas placed fourth on his Tour debut and fellow Frenchman Lenny Martinez, who is an excellent climber, placed fifth overall.
Both are riders of the future.
Martinez, 23, blew the chance of a stage win on the iconic Alpe d'Huez when he didn't work properly with Richard Carapaz to distance Pogacar lower down the climb.
Carapaz won two mountain stages but the 33-year-old Ecuadorian was not a threat for the title and Pogacar didn't need to chase him. The 2019 Giro d'Italia winner is an attacking rider, but advancing years — and the fact he placed 20 minutes behind Pogacar overall — diminish the challenge he poses to Pogacar in future.
Only the 26-year-old Evenepoel appears to have an outside chance of toppling Pogacar. The two-time Olympic champion can beat Pogacar in time trials and is young enough to improve in the mountains. He rode well to win the 15th stage, albeit after Vingegaard had crashed.
He is part of an ambitious Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe team which has big financial backing and could yet build a winning team around him. However, the team must decide who to back as No. 1 rider between Evenepoel and German climber Florian Lipowitz, who was third on last year's Tour.
Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates teammate Isaac Del Toro, a 22-year-old Mexican making his Tour debut, placed third overall but remains under Pogacar's wing as his elite support rider.
It has been a great year for Pogacar.
He won stage races at the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de Romandie, as well as stunning victories in one-day classics.
Pogacar won the Giro d’Italia by a huge margin in 2024.
But unlike Vingegaard, Hinault, Anquetil, and Merckx, he has not won the Spanish Vuelta for a hat trick of Grand Tours wins.
“Will I be at La Vuelta in a few weeks?” Pogacar said teasingly on Sunday. “Let’s see.”
This year's race made headlines when Pogacar and Vingegaard had unannounced anti-doping tests in the early hours: 5 a.m. for Pogacar and 2 a.m. for Vingegaard.
Some fans were outraged, and Evenepoel described the timing as “very disrespectful” to riders during an exhausting race.
Pogacar suggested fatigue may have played a factor in Vingegaard's crash later that day. However, Pogacar later accepted that random-hour testing helps improve transparency.
Cycling’s governing body, the UCI, has entrusted Tour testing since 2021 to the Swiss-based International Testing Agency, which said correct procedures were followed.
The sport's reputation was badly hit when Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven Tour titles (1999-2005) after confessing in 2013 to having used performance-enhancing drugs. Two years later, a 227-page report detailed cycling’s historic culture of drug use.
British rider Chris Froome, who won the Tour four times (2013 and 2015-17) when trust in cycling overall was very low following the Armstrong scandal, said he agreed with the early-morning tests.
“It is something that, as riders, I just think we have to embrace,” he said in an interview with British newspaper The Telegraph. “Our doors always have to be open, regardless of how inconvenient it is ... to inspire confidence and to act as a deterrent.”
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