In his unstoppable campaign from Barcelona to Paris, Tadej Pogacar exhibited a mix of poise and panache to claim his fifth Tour de France win (2020, 2021, 2024, 2025 and 2026). The Slovene now stands next to Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain in the annals and pantheon of the race. Rather than seeking to emulate his predecessors, he has blazed his own trail, now with his young Mexican wingman, Isaac del Toro, hitched to his wagon.
You could say that Tadej Pogacar lives by the proverb “shared joy is double joy”. Coming at the end of another show of strength and sheer class, the Slovene’s latest triumph in Paris earned him his fifth Yellow Jersey and raised him a bit further away from his contemporaries as he ascends towards the Olympus of the sport. His peers in yellow raced decades ago, from Anquetil in the 1960s and the Merckx era to the reign of The Badger and the end of the Indurain hegemony in 1995. His Tour victories in 2020, 2021, 2024, 2025 and 2026 have brought Maître Tadej into the select circle of riders with five wins. The next champion of this calibre could be decades away too. For now, Pogacar shines bright and shares his light.
Between the starting signal in Barcelona and the finish line on the Champs-Élysées, the Slovene picked up five stage wins and wore the Yellow Jersey for seventeen days. He had landed an even bigger haul in 2024 (six stage wins and nineteen days in yellow), when he left nothing on the table as he grabbed even the closing stage in Nice, a feat he has yet to repeat in Paris despite his courageous rides on the high-voltage ascents to Montmartre. Jonas Vingegaard has been his main challenger since 2021, but this time, he finished 6′26″ ahead of Remco Evenepoel, besting his personal record from 2024 (6′17″ over Vingegaard) by a few seconds.
Pogacar was the undisputed master of the race from A to Z. He remained as cool as a cucumber even as Visma–Lease a Bike stormed to victory in the opening time trial and his Danish rival pulled on the Yellow Jersey again. The very next day, the Slovene sent it right back at Vingegaard by catapulting Isaac del Toro to his maiden victory and earning the undying sympathy of the Mexican people. Pogacar struck as soon as the peloton ventured into thin air in the Pyrenees, claiming his first win of this edition in Les Angles and delivering a barnstorming performance on the road to Gavarnie-Gèdre. As he pedalled towards his 23rd stage win, he made history by becoming the first reigning world champion to go over the Tourmalet alone at the front of the race.
The Slovenian funambulist walked the tightrope to the Cirque de Gavarnie and reclaimed the golden fleece, which Torstein Træen had borrowed after stages 4 and 5. A series of high-wire performances would take his Tour de France stage win tally to 26: a bounce to Le Lioran (stage 10), where he set the record straight two years after bending the knee to Vingegaard at the ski resort in Cantal; a show of strength at Le Markstein (stage 14), where he had already prevailed while clad in white back in 2023; and the icing on the cake on the Alpe d’Huez (stage 19), one of the crowning achievements of his career.
Starting 3′30″ behind a swarm of breakaway specialists who dreamed of glory at the ski resort in Isère, the Slovene began the chase with 13 km to go. He reeled in the survivors one by one until he added one more legendary summit to his record at the Tour: the Grand Colombier, the Planche des Belles Filles, the Col du Portet, Luz-Ardiden, Peyragudes, Cauterets, Le Markstein, the Pla d’Adet, the Plateau de Beille, Isola 2000, the Col de la Couillole, Hautacam and, now, the Alpe d’Huez.
“Pogi” versus the world? Absolutely not. The man from Klanec basked in the glow of the hundreds of thousands of fans who cheered for his attacks. After crossing swords with his frenemy Mathieu van der Poel in Paris, he celebrated a new title with his girlfriend, Urska Žigart, and all his teammates, including Brandon McNulty, who had had to quit the race in the final week, when the Emirati outfit seemed on the verge of collapse. Pogacar, however, had energy to spare, to the point that the Yellow Jersey had no qualms about burning fuel in support of his young Mexican wingman.
On their way towards the second consecutive finish on the Alpe d’Huez, this time over the Col de Sarenne, Maître Tadej shepherded his disciple Del Toro to the bottom step of the podium and the white jersey that had once seemed his personal property. Indeed, young “Pogi” had gone virtually unchallenged in the best young rider’s classification between 2020 and 2023. He now stands next to Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain as one of the masters of the Yellow Jersey. Whether in the history books or on the road, Pogacar will never ride alone.
