Untouchable and a world apart: cycling world reacts to Pogacar’s fifth Tour win

Tadej Pogacar has quickly drawn level with the Tour de France greats and Paul Seixas, the young home hope, is keen to acknowledge the Slovene’s dominance

Tadej Pogacar woke up in Paris on Monday as the fastest and the youngest cyclist to win five Tours de France. The 27-year-old Slovene took his fifth overall win on the Champs Elysées on Sunday evening in a thrilling final stage won by Matthieu van der Poel.

Pogacaris level with Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Induráin and he is expected to continue racing in pursuit of a record-breaking sixth win.

“When it’s not fun any more, that’s when he will stop,” his mother, Marjeta, said. Asked how long her son might continue at his current level, she replied: “Maybe 10 years – I don’t know, we’ll see.”

The French media were, broadly, supportive of Pogacar’s success, with L’Equipe lauding his membership of the “club of five”. Aujourd’hui called it a “five-star triumph”, while Le Figaro described Pogacar as “untouchable, implacable and unbending”.

Pogacar’s CV is indeed untouchable. His record of wins is arguably more complete than Merckx’s, with only Paris-Roubaix and the Vuelta a España, which starts in Monaco on 22 August, still to be won.

The stats reveal just how dominant a Tour champion he has been. Over the 16,911km he has ridden during his five wins, he spent almost 9,500km in the yellow jersey. Given he took the lead in his first Tour win, in 2020, on the penultimate day, that is extraordinary.

He was the youngest of the five-time winners to take the title and achieved his successes in just under 404 hours of racing; it took Anquetil almost 613. His average speed, 41.99kmh, was faster than any other five-time winner and he has won more mountain stages. These figures reflect changes in technology, equipment and athlete ability, allied to shorter stages, increased rest days and the diminishing number of time trials in the Tour.

While Pogacar and his team thrived, with Isaac del Toro joining his team leader on the Paris podium by finishing third, others plumbed the depths. Their dominant UAE Emirates XRG team won €832,750 (about £712,000 ) in prize money, while the Picnic PostNL team won €12,770.

French cyclists had a mixed experience. For only the third time there were no home stage wins, but three French riders – Paul Seixas, Lenny Martinez and Jordan Jegat – finished in the top 10.

The teenager Seixas represents the future for the home nation, but the 19-year-old, who began the Tour recovering from a crash in June and nursing a cold, was disappointed to finish in fourth place. “I’d hoped to make the podium in Paris as there wasn’t much between me and [Isaac] Del Toro,” he said. “But between myself and Pogacar, it’s a world apart.

“But it’s motivating and inspiring. It will make me work harder. I’ve a concrete vision of what I need to do, to get closer to my dream of winning the Tour.”

Pogacar is expected to confirm he will start the Vuelta, while the future plans of longstanding rival Jonas Vingegaard, who crashed out of the Tour on the day he was visited by doping control at two in the morning, remain unclear.

The nocturnal doping controls subjected to both riders by the International Testing Agency provoked intense speculation, although no results have been made known.

However, Le Figaro, while acknowledging Pogacar’s achievement, captured the climate that still surrounds any serial winner, saying that credibility for the Tour and for Pogacar is a “challenge greater than any record”.