Last year, Tadej Pogacar became the first man in 38 years to complete cycling’s fabled triple crown. That came alongside winning two of the five monuments (making him the only man to achieve that feat alongside the triple in the same year) for a total haul of 25 victories. It was a generational season, the kind that will go down in sporting folklore, by a generational talent.
Then came this year. No triple crown. But instead, a fourth Tour de France title, taking him equal with Chris Froome. A defence of the rainbow jersey – making him the first man to win the Tour-worlds double in two successive years – followed a week later by a maiden European crown. A record-equalling fifth victory at Il Lombardia, and a record-setting fifth consecutive win.
That was unprecedented in any number of ways. Before Pogacar, no one had ever won a monument five times on the bounce, or won Il Lombardia as the reigning world champion twice, or stood on the podium of all five monuments in the same season. (It’s rare enough to even race all five.)
Pogacar hasn’t smiled as much as he has in previous seasons; he recently called the Tour de France “a necessary evil” and was clearly world-weary after an especially gruelling edition of the race – one that he still managed to make a procession by less than halfway through.
But the beaming smile was back as he was asked to evaluate his season in Bergamo after his final win of the year. “I always say, seven years in a row, this is my best season. And again I can say this is the best season so far.”
What next? One more Tour de France victory would take him level with the sport’s all-time greats on a joint-record five: Jacques Anquetil, Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault and of course, Eddy Merckx. One more than that and he would stand alone.
For all his complaints of the Tour being a necessary evil, it is also the fundamental building block of his legacy, and it is catastrophically unlikely that his team – who would probably have a decent shot at winning the Tour with one of Pogacar’s understudies anyway – would ever let him skip it.
Next year’s route, unveiled on Thursday, is once again tailor-made to his strengths, with a litany of punchy stages, a climber-friendly time trial, and back-to-back summit finishes on Alpe d’Huez, including the queen stage on the penultimate day. It also offers him the chance to earn revenge over Jonas Vingegaard in Le Lioran, having been caught on the line by the Dane there in 2024.
Indurain won all five of his Tours in a row; could Pogacar match or better that? He’d need to keep going until at least 2028, when an umpteenth Tour title would lead nicely into a tilt at Olympic gold. That is one of the few things he’s missing, although he happily gave it a miss last summer to target the triple crown instead.
The Vuelta a Espana is the only grand tour he has yet to conquer; he could yet attempt the unprecedented grand tour triple in one calendar year. He is more than halfway to matching Merckx’s record of 19 monument wins, with 10, and at 27 appears to be only getting better.
It seems inevitable that, after finishing second on his debut appearance, he will conquer Paris-Roubaix; Milan San-Remo remains a thorn in his side and he will no doubt chase it until he lifts that trophy too. Mark Cavendish’s record of 35 Tour de France stage wins is also under threat from the marauding Slovenian, who currently sits on 21.
Does cycling have a Pogacar problem? No doubt there were those who rolled their eyes every time Merckx won a race, too, both within the peloton and without. Cycling remains a sport that struggles to shake off its heavily chequered past, and one in which scepticism hangs over every incredible result. But there is no evidence to suggest anything untoward behind Pogacar’s performances, and his relentless aggression is the sport at its best: fast, frenetic, non-stop in search of yet more greatness.
The good news for the years to come is that Pogacar does have rivals, and any number of as-yet-undiscovered young riders could disrupt cycling’s status quo in the same way he once did. Teammate Isaac del Toro is one; ex-teammate Juan Ayuso, who has moved teams in search of a leading role, another. It would obviously be remiss to write off Jonas Vingegaard, who is not just a supporting character in the Pogacar story but a force in his own right.
Remco Evenepoel has switched teams at least in part to close the gap to the Slovenian; he has already said a major target over his winter training programme is to improve those three- to five-minute uphill efforts that Pogacar excels at. “If I want to beat him in the future, I have to work on this kind of effort,” he told Nieuwsblad. “Luckily, I’m changing teams, and it’s up to my new coach to fix that.” Game on.
Beyond that, no era lasts forever. And it’s possible that the landscape of cycling itself may shift. In recent years, race organisers have moved towards a model that seems designed for the Slovenian, with brutal climbs and long, intense courses the norm. Some of the year’s most exciting races were on terrain that lent itself to a broader variety of riders, including the final stage of this year’s Tour de France, when Pogacar was dropped on a short, vicious cobbled climb by fan favourite Wout van Aert, and could not close the gap.
But the world champion is in his prime and has shown, from his attack on Paris-Roubaix to his improved endurance over hour-long Alpine climbs, the ability to near eradicate his weaknesses, to conquer any style of racing, to mould himself into the supreme athlete. While we wait for the others to catch up, or the World Tour to reinvent itself, we can only sit back and enjoy the ride.
