Pogacar Joins Cycling's Five-Timers Club as Wildfires Reshape the Tour's Final Day
A fifth Tour de France title puts Tadej Pogacar level with Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain — on a final stage shortened by wildfires in southern France.
Tadej Pogacar rolled onto the Champs-Elysees on Sunday and into the most exclusive club in cycling. The Slovenian sealed his fifth Tour de France victory, drawing level with Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain as the joint most successful rider in the race's history — and he's still only in his prime years.
A dominant three weeks
The final margin told the story of the race: Pogacar finished roughly six and a half minutes clear of Belgium's Remco Evenepoel, with young Mexican climber Isaac Del Toro — Pogacar's own UAE Team Emirates-XRG teammate — completing the podium and locking up the white jersey as best young rider, according to Cyclingnews. Mads Pedersen took the green points jersey and Richard Carapaz the polka-dot mountains classification.
A final stage like no other
The traditional Paris parade nearly didn't happen as planned. With police and security personnel redirected to fight wildfires raging in southwest France, organizers scrapped the planned start in Thoiry and cut stage 21 down to an 88.7km circuit starting and finishing on the Champs-Elysees, NPR reported. The shortened route still packed in three laps of the cobbled Montmartre climb — the circuit first made famous at the Paris 2024 Olympics — and Mathieu van der Poel delivered a fitting finale by winning the stage.
Why it matters
Only Lance Armstrong has ever won more Tours, and his seven titles were stripped for doping. That leaves Pogacar staring at something no rider has legitimately done: a sixth Tour de France. Given the gap he put into the best stage racers of his generation this July, the record books should be nervous.