Prodigy Pogačar set to secure fourth Tour de France title, cementing legacy in cycling history

When the 2025 Tour de France set off in Normandy nearly three weeks ago, consensus was that by the time the race reached Paris, 21 stages and 3,300km later, Slovenian Tadej Pogačar would be in the leader’s yellow jersey.

And so it has come to pass. Barring a race-ending crash in the final two stages, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader will claim his fourth Tour de France title at the age of 26 when the flag comes down on the Champs-Élysées on Saturday, 26 July.

Pogačar all but confirmed his victory on an epic stage 16 that ended with the mythical climb up the steep slopes of Mont Ventoux — the “Giant of Provence”. He finished fifth on the road that day, but showed he was unbreakable.

He fended off main rival Jonas Vingegaard (26) in a battle for the ages on the 21.5km climb at a 7.5% gradient up the mountain that had crushed Pogačar’s hopes in 2021.

“I’m definitely not Superman, I was born in Ljubljana, not wherever Superman was born, I forget. But today was an epic climb to do, all the same,” Pogačar said afterwards.

That might be news to his rivals, though, because the Slovenian is the closest thing to Superman in professional sport, let alone cycling. He is stacking up records and titles at a similar speed as rides down the slopes of a high mountain. No one in the peloton can touch him.

Vingegaard, the dour Dane, has been in good form this year. On the Ventoux stage, he and his Visma-Lease a Bike team had a great plan, which they executed to perfection to try to break Pogačar on the slopes of the giant.

Vingegaard had teammates around him in the main peloton as they approached Ventoux and he had allies in the breakaway several minutes ahead. The plan was for his lieutenants to give him vital support at various stages during the climb when he attacked Pogačar. The plan was excellent.

The only problem was that Pogačar could not and would not be shaken. He covered every Vingegaard attack and then launched an audacious counterattack himself. They were like two Velcro-clad boxers slugging it out.

In the end the Slovenian took another two seconds from Vingegaard to extend his lead to 4:15 at the end of the stage. Threat nullified, yellow jersey secured.

It was the defining stage of the tour. It was a success for both Visma and Vingegaard, proving that the 2022 and 2023 Tour de France winner is still a great rider capable of stressing Pogačar.

It was also a day that France celebrated as Valentin Paret-Peintre (24) won the iconic stage 45 seconds ahead of the Tour’s two heads of state. And it was a day that Pogačar confirmed his iron grip on the race specifically and on road cycling more broadly.

For Pogačar, the only slight — and it was slight — negative was not winning on Ventoux.

“I was coming up quite fast, I could see the winners ahead in the last 800m, but not even Superman could have caught them there,” Poga­čar said. “In the end, I was actually quite close to the break­away. Chapeau (hats off) to Paret-Peintre, he de­served the victory. It was a super-nice win.”

The new Cannibal

When Pogačar won his ­second Tour de France in 2021, Belgium’s great Eddy Merckx, considered the finest cyclist to don a pair of cleats, anointed the Slovenian as the future of the sport.

“I see him as the new Cannibal,” said five-time Tour champion Merckx, who earned the nickname because of his insatiable appetite for victory and won his first Tour in 1969 at the age of 23. “He is extremely strong. I see him winning several editions of the Tour in the years to come. If nothing happens to him, he can certainly win the Tour de France more than five times.”

Merckx was spot on. In addition to the three, soon to be four Tour de France titles, Pogačar won the Giro d’Italia and World Championship road race in 2024, becoming only the third man in history after Merckx to win the Triple Crown in the same year.

The Belgian did it in 1974 and Ireland’s Stephen Roche in 1987. In addition, the Slovenian has amassed dozens of other titles (see box) as well as 21 stage wins (at the time of writing) at the Tour de France.

Up Ventoux, he and Vingegaard smashed the record for the climb. Pogačar was timed at 54:41 — one minute 10 seconds faster than the previous best mark set by Spain’s Iban Mayo in 2004.

Given cycling’s uncomfortable history with performance-enhancing drugs, these performances do raise eyebrows. Pogačar, though, has never failed a doping test or the latest “mechanical doping” tests. Considering how much he’s won, he must be the most tested athlete on the planet.

Things have also changed. For one, bicycles are lighter and more aerodynamic, training methods and diets have improved and there is greater science in terms of recovery and training methods.

Also, Pogačar has been a prodigy from a young age and his performance levels have been on a stratospherically high level since his teenage years. Dopers are often good cyclists who at some point in their career become great riders. Pogačar has always been exceptional.

In 2017, while riding for the Slovenian Continental squad ROG-Ljubljana, he was fifth overall in the Tour of Slovenia and third in the Tour de Hongarie. He also finished 20th in the U23 World Championships Road Race while still a teenager.

In 2019, at the age of 20, he became the youngest cyclist to win a UCI World Tour race at the Tour of California. He also made his Grand Tour debut at the Vuelta a España that year, where he won three stages, finished third overall and secured the young rider classification.

And of course he won the 2020 Tour de France, taking three stages along the way, including a 36.2km mountain time trial to La Planche des Belles Filles to pip countryman Primoz Roglic.

Like Lionel Messi, Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods, Pogačar is a once-in-a-generation athlete who is changing a sport. DM

This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.