Five Tours, One Ghost: Pogačar’s Historic Summer and Cycling’s Ultimate Benchmark

On a Sunday shortened by wildfire smoke rather than ambition, Tadej Pogačar rolled onto the Champs-Élysées and did what he needed to do: stay upright and let others fight for the stage. Mathieu van der Poel took the final sprint, but the overall prize went to Pogačar for a third year in a row. His fifth Tour de France title places the 27-year-old Slovenian alongside Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain in the race’s most exclusive club. It reopens a question that now feels inevitable: how close can he really get to Merckx?

The Numbers Behind the Fifth Jersey

The scale of this Tour was hard to miss. Pogačar won five stages in the mountains and the time trial, taking his career total to 26 Tour stage victories, fourth on the all-time list behind Mark Cavendish, Merckx and Hinault. He crossed Paris 6 minutes and 26 seconds clear of Remco Evenepoel, with teammate Isaac del Toro completing the podium. Along the way, he passed Miguel Indurain and Chris Froome for total days in yellow, moving to 70, second only to Hinault’s 75 and Merckx’s imposing 96. He is now the youngest rider to five Tour wins, the first to finish on the podium in seven consecutive editions, and the only one to stand on the podium of nine straight Grand Tours.

Beyond the Stopwatch

None of this has come at the cost of warmth. “Pogi,” as the peloton and fans alike call him, remains one of the most approachable stars in the sport, quick with a wave, a joke or a selfie when the cameras stop rolling. That likability extends to his rivals: after finally beating him in a photo finish on the Champs-Élysées, Van der Poel still made a point of paying tribute, saying simply that he had “all my respect for Tadej.” It also showed in how Pogačar spent his final week, riding not for another stage win but to guide young teammate Isaac del Toro to the white jersey and a place on the final podium, a small gesture that said as much about him as any number in the results sheet.

The Merckx Question

Five Tours is a number Pogačar now shares with cycling’s greatest names, but sharing a number is not the same as closing a gap. Merckx still holds 34 Tour stage wins to Pogačar’s 26, and 96 days in yellow to his 70. Widen the lens and the distance grows: Merckx’s career includes sixteen Grand Tour victories across the Tour, Giro and Vuelta, against Pogačar’s nine, and a full sweep of cycling’s five Monuments, several of them won multiple times, a collection Pogačar still can’t claim outright after finishing runner-up at Paris-Roubaix this year. Add in Merckx’s staggering 278 career wins against Pogačar’s 127, and the comparison starts to look less like a rivalry and more like a horizon.

Can He Get There?

At 27, with his engine apparently undiminished and years of racing still ahead, Pogačar has time that Merckx’s era never allowed anyone to waste. Matching the Tour win record outright, perhaps even the stage-win tally, feels within reach if his health cooperates. But equalling the sheer breadth of Merckx’s dominance, across three Grand Tours and every cobbled or hilly Monument in a single career, is a different kind of target, one that has defied every great champion since 1978. Pogačar has already rewritten what seemed possible in the modern peloton. Whether he can rewrite cycling’s oldest record book is the story we’ll be following for years to come.