With his fifth Tour de France victory, Tadej Pogačar has made cycling history. The 27-year-old Slovenian now stands level with Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx, and Miguel Indurain.
Pogačar (UAE Emirates-XRG) completed the 113th Tour de France with a 6:26 lead over Remco Evenepoel, underlining his overwhelming dominance in the world’s most prestigious cycling race.
However, he narrowly missed out on a sixth stage win: on the shortened final stage of 88.7 km, Pogačar launched two powerful attacks on Montmartre, but Mathieu van der Poel could not be shaken off. The former world champion van der Poel then launched his own attack on the final climb to the Basilica of Sacré-Cœur, where the riders were met by a deafening roar from the masses of spectators lining the narrow cobblestone passage. Yet Pogačar followed.
The duo worked together to fend off the chasers, but in the final kilometer, Pogačar was dropped — van der Poel secured the victory with a lunge at the finish line ahead of his teammate Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek).
Pogačar’s teammate Isaac Del Toro (+9:42) finished third overall, thereby winning the White Jersey and inheriting the position from Florian Lipowitz of Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe, who had withdrawn following a crash in the time trial on stage 16.
The stage had been shortened from the original 133 km to 88.7 km because the French Interior Ministry had redirected some of its security forces to regions of France affected by wildfires.
The official start took place directly at the finish line in Paris, where Pogačar appeared on a bike with a special yellow paint job, relaxed and posing arm in arm with his teammates for photos.
