The riders in the 2025 Tour de France have completed just over half of the 21 stages, with the lead at this point held by Tadej Pogačar. The Slovenian defending champion has a modest lead over his nearest rival, Jonas Vingegaard of Denmark, who trails by 3:31 minutes.
This time gap is not insurmountable, while as we saw in Toulouse, with Pogačar crashing, anything can influence the final outcome of Le Tour.
As of July 18, we are witnessing a 26-year-old, who would have been just a novice rider in the ‘80s and ‘90s, cruising gracefully to his fourth Tour de France.
Perspective is important; all of Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain won five Tours de France. Merckx also dominated the sport elsewhere during his reign; Indurain and Hinault less so.
Pogačar has performed well at other key tours, the Giro d’Italia and La Vuelta a Espana. Cycling greatness, though, tends to be measured by success in the French race. Winning the Tour de France is the absolute pinnacle of cycling, worth more than Olympic gold and any number of lesser victories.
By July 27, therefore, Pogačar is likely to have claimed four final maillot jaunes, leaving him one away from joining the absolute legends.
All that, with 10 to 15 years likely left as a professional.
There have been other youngsters on the verge of dominating pro cycling and becoming the greatest. 2019 winner Egan Bernal Gomez of Colombia won the hearts of millions in cycling-crazy Colombia, and given his age, at the time only 22, few would have doubted he was capable of winning another four.
Bernal is lucky to be alive after a serious accident, and cycling fans may never know what his true potential was. Now racing again, Colombia’s first winner of Le Tour may return to challenge again, where he belongs, at the top.
Whatever might have been, the record books show that Bernal won one Tour de France, despite having talent on a par with that of Pogačar. His story is a sad reminder of the dangers of sharing roads with large chunks of metal, propelled, at times, carelessly along by inattentive drivers.
Meanwhile, the probable 2025 champion won his first Tour de France after a stunning final time trial. Pogačar overhauled a comfortable lead held by his fellow Slovenian, Primoz Roglič, to amaze the world and open his account in France.
Ascending challenging peaks several minutes faster than Lance Armstrong during his prime is one thing, Pogačar also made Marco Pantani’s records seem tame. The most remarkable ride was up Plateau de Beille, which he did 3:44 minutes faster than the Italian.
Anybody who knows cycling will understand that this is akin to beating Usain Bolt’s 100m record by 0.15 of a second.
Pogačar hasn’t always been invincible, losing the Tour de France twice to his main rival Jonas Vingegaard in both 2022 and 2023, finishing second both times. Some consider this detrimental to any claim that he is the greatest; others point out that the mark of a true champion is the ability to get back up again. His return to winning ways in 2024 set him apart as a pro capable of digging deep and finding the extra when challenged.
The stage in Toulouse almost ended in disaster, as a high-speed crash (with no other riders falling) could easily have seen him abandon the race. The contact he made with the road surface will have hurt, but he will consider himself lucky that it was softer tissue that absorbed the impact. A fall at that speed could have left him with a dozen broken bones, not to mention that he could have skidded into any curb or wall.
After medical treatment, his next day’s racing saw him climb Hautacam over two minutes faster than Vingegaard, whose ascent would have amazed the world any other year.
The supreme athleticism of Pogačar means that he has the potential to win any stage of the race, at will, despite not needing to or wanting to. There is simply nobody who can stop him, bar perhaps Remco Evenepoel in a time trial.
Add to this the fact that rival teams allegedly employ tactics intended to nullify Pogačar’s superiority. Team tactics are kept secret, but on climbs, false attacks by rival teams could tire him out as he is forced to respond to the constant slowing and speeding up of the group he is riding in.
Yesterday proved that he is equal to the task, although he is said to have expressed disdain for the way it keeps repeating. Perhaps it is a compliment to the legend. Put simply, the only way to beat him is to thwart him, like a soccer park-the-bus scenario. Who knows, perhaps Jose Mourinho is doubling up as a cycling technical director these days. It wouldn’t be any more remarkable than Sir Dave Brailsford taking a role at Manchester United.
Brailsford oversaw one of the periods of dominance in the Tour de France, masterminding six British victories in the race, plus that of Bernal.
His stepping aside leaves his former Team Sky outfit, now Ineos Grenadiers, an also-ran in the tour, albeit with some talent still reaching Paris every year. Few believe, however, that even his genius and leadership qualities could have derailed the march to power of the impending greatest ever.
Statistics ultimately define the greatest in any sport, beyond which it is always a matter of opinion. Tom Brady won seven Super Bowls, perhaps needless to remind people of that. Phil Taylor won 16 darts World Championships, none of which are likely to be surpassed anytime soon. If ever.
The five victories in the Tour de France held by the aforementioned heroes are under threat from this not-so-new kid on the block. Before he reaches 27, which is how old Indurain was when he won his first, Pogačar is likely to have won four. Before he turns 30, he could have won six or seven.
That will leave him with another decade in the sport to complete the unthinkable.
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