Tadej Pogacar’s command of world cycling now seems limitless. The man from Slovenia ended 2025 as he began it, dominating a coveted Italian classic, Il Lombardia, to win the “race of the falling leaves” for the fifth consecutive time.
The 27-year-old started his European season by winning the Tuscan gravel race, Strade Bianche. He closed it having matched Italian icon Fausto Coppi’s record of five Lombardy wins and Eddy Merckx’s achievement of winning three “monument” races, the Tour de France and the world road race title in the same year.
In late July, however, a weary Pogacar talked about early retirement and a sense of burnout, even as he took his fourth yellow jersey. His mid-season low came towards the end of that Tour win, when he seemed withdrawn and disgruntled, as the race closed on Paris. There were whispered rumours that he had been asked to back off a little and resist further stage wins to avoid reducing the Tour to a procession.
In fact, Pogacar told Slovenian media on Monday that he had come close to quitting the 2025 Tour, while leading the race, due to a worsening knee injury. “The day after the stage finish on Mont Ventoux, I had problems with my knee and started to have doubts about whether I would be able to continue,” he said, adding that the cold weather during the subsequent Alpine stages didn’t help. “It was cold and my body went on the defensive. My body was in shock. I had had enough of everything.”
After a post-Tour sabbatical, during which he trained in kit bearing the messages “Do Not Disturb” and “No Photography”, he came back, seemingly revitalised, winning the world and European road races titles. Only Remco Evenepoel, the world and Olympic time-trial champion, was able to hang on to his back wheel.
By the end of the season, Pogacar was insatiable. “I always say, seven years in a row, this is my best season,” he said after winning in Lombardy on Saturday. “And again I can say this is the best season so far.”
In comparison, Jonas Vingegaard, second to Pogacar in the Tour, rebooted himself to take victory in a troubled Vuelta a España, where the presence of the Israel Premier-Tech team led to mass pro-Palestinian protests and the cancellation of the final stage in Madrid.
That team is now to undergo a rebrand, after pressure from rival teams, race organisers and even their own star rider, Derek Gee, who cited “serious concerns” which he said “weighed heavily” on his conscience, forced change.
Over the season, the only rider to come close to matching Pogacar’s spring-to-autumn longevity has been a revitalised Tom Pidcock, the Briton who chased him over the Tuscan hills to second place in Siena back in February and was in hot pursuit on Saturday in Lombardy, finishing sixth.
Pidcock’s rebirth, which led to his best-ever finish in a Grand Tour, third in the Vuelta, was mirrored by another Ineos Sport exile and fellow Olympic mountain biking champion, Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, who took the first French win in the Tour de France this century.
Ferrand-Prévot’s climbing performances on the final weekend of the Tour de France Femmes overwhelmed past champions Demi Vollering and Kasia Niewiadoma, and led to jubilation in the Alps.
But her win also sparked a debate about extreme weight loss in the women’s peloton, with even Ferrand-Prévot admitting it was unsustainable and rival rider Marlen Reusser saying “we secretly hoped she wouldn’t be successful.”
Asked by Dutch journalists if she should lose more weight to compete with Ferrand-Prévot, Vollering responded: “I want to set a good example. I hope I can win again and show girls you don’t have to be super-skinny and that if you have the power and you train hard, you can make it.”
There were other breakthrough performances in French cycling, with the most notable coming from teenager Paul Seixas, whose win in the Tour de l’Avenir, allied to third place behind Pogacar and Evenepoel in the European Championships, led to roadside banners proclaiming “Seixas is better than sex”.
Great things are now expected from the Lyon-based rider, but given the pressures being heaped on him, many are hoping that unlike other French prodigies, he can survive the hype and prosper.
The year however, has belonged to Pogacar, yet again. Some are enthralled by his domination, others are left cold by his long solo attacks, while others find it unsettling. Whichever camp you fall into, it’s an indication of cycling’s inability to ever reconcile itself with its troubled past that some remain sceptical of extraordinary performances.
