Tadej Pogacar woke up in Paris on Monday as the fastest and youngest cyclist to win five Tours de France. The 27-year-old Slovene secured his fifth overall victory on the Champs-Élysées on Sunday evening in a thrilling final stage won by Mathieu van der Poel.
Pogacar joins the club of five
Pogacar is now level with Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain. He is expected to continue racing in pursuit of a record-breaking sixth win. His mother, Marjeta, said: 'When it's not fun any more, that's when he will stop.' 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. L'Équipe lauded his membership of the 'club of five', while Le Figaro described him as 'untouchable, implacable and unbending'.
Dominant statistics and prize money
Pogacar's CV is untouchable. His record of victories 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. Over the 16,911km he has ridden during his five wins, he spent almost 9,500km in the yellow jersey. He was the youngest five-time winner to take the title and achieved his successes in just under 404 hours of racing; it took Anquetil almost 613. Pogacar's average speed, 41.99kmh, was faster than any other five-time winner, and he has won more mountain stages.
Pogacar's dominant UAE Emirates XRG team won €832,750 (about £712,000) in prize money, while the Picnic PostNL team won €12,770. Isaac del Toro joined his team leader on the Paris podium by finishing third.
French riders: mixed results and future hopes
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. Seixas, a 19-year-old who began the Tour recovering from a crash in June and nursing a cold, was disappointed to finish fourth in the general classification. 'I'd hoped to make the podium in Paris as there wasn't much between me and 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.'
Future plans and doping controls
Pogacar is expected to confirm that he will start the Vuelta, while the future plans of his longstanding rival Jonas Vingegaard, who crashed out of the Tour on the day he was visited by doping control at 2am, 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. 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'.
