{"id":303176,"date":"2025-11-23T08:49:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-23T08:49:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/303176\/"},"modified":"2025-11-23T08:49:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-23T08:49:20","slug":"is-tadej-pogacar-the-most-naturally-gifted-tour-de-france-winner-of-all-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/303176\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Tadej Poga\u010dar the most naturally gifted Tour de France winner of all time?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Professional cycling, especially in the 2020s, has increasingly become a numbers game. In an era of sports scientists and power meters, data is king: absolute power, watts per kilo, aerodynamic CdA, durability measured in kilojoules, heart rate, and recovery metrics are all pored over by scouts and coaches armed with software and algorithms, as they crunch the numbers in search of the next superstar.<\/p>\n

But, when it comes to assessing the natural ability and potential of endurance athletes, one measurement still stands above the rest: VO2 max.<\/p>\n

Also known as maximal oxygen uptake, VO2 max refers to the volume of oxygen, in litres per minute, transported by an athlete during exercise. The \u2018normal\u2019 VO2 max for a man in his 20s falls between 38 and 43ml\/kg\/min. Professional male cyclists, meanwhile, tend to range between the mid-70s to the high-80s.<\/p>\n

Lance Armstrong\u2019s VO2 max was reported to be 85, while five-time Tour de France winner Miguel Indur\u00e1in\u2019s was said to be 88, around the same as four-time Tour champion Chris Froome.<\/p>\n

\"GregGreg LeMond (credit: Creative Commons)<\/p>\n

Greg LeMond, however, is widely believed to have recorded the highest VO2 max for a cyclist, the American submitting a score of 92.5 during a session early in his career in Colorado Springs, a result so staggering the tester is reported to have exclaimed upon seeing the numbers, \u2018Jesus, guys, look at this!\u2019<\/p>\n

But LeMond\u2019s 40-year-old reign as cycling\u2019s VO2 king now appears to be under threat, thanks to \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 Tadej Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n

According to a new study published by Norwegian researcher Ole Kristian Berg, the world champion\u2019s VO2 max could be as high as 96 ml\/kg\/min.<\/p>\n

To put that into perspective, for many years, 96 was the highest VO2 ever recorded, courtesy of Norwegian cross-country skiers Espen Harald Bjerke and Bj\u00f8rn D\u00e6hlie, the latter viewed as the greatest male skier ever.<\/p>\n

That benchmark was broken in 2012, when that year\u2019s world junior time trial champion Oskar Svendsen, at the age of 18, posted a result of 97.5. Despite finishing fifth at the Tour de l\u2019Avenir the following season, the Norwegian would never turn pro, quitting the sport in 2014 citing burnout.<\/p>\n

\"TadejTadej Poga\u010dar wins stage 15 of the 2024 Tour de France on Plateau de Beille (credit: ASO\/Charly Lopez)<\/p>\n

In an article titled \u2018Tour de Physiology:\u00a0The Exceptional Power Outputs and V\u0307O2 of climbing in the Tour de France\u2019<\/a>, published in the Journal of Science and Cycling earlier this month, Berg argued that Poga\u010dar\u2019s dominant displays at the 2024 and 2025 editions of the Tour de France had seen him \u201cpushing the limits of human physiological performance\u201d.<\/p>\n

While Berg\u2019s assessment of the Slovenian\u2019s maximal oxygen uptake did not take place in a lab, the researcher based his findings on Poga\u010dar\u2019s climbing performances and power output on six mountain stages across the last two Tours: Plateau de Beille, Isola 2000, and the Col de la Couillole in 2024, and Hautacam, Peyragudes, and Mont Ventoux at this year\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

To work out Poga\u010dar\u2019s power output, and thus translate it to VO2, Berg, a researcher in the Faculty of Health Sciences and Social Care at Molde University College, collected the relevant time and elevation data from the four-time Tour winner\u2019s Strava, as well as the Slovenian\u2019s publicly available weight and height, and the estimated weight of his Colnago machine.<\/p>\n

\"TableTable detailing Poga\u010dar’s power output and VO2 max during 2024 and 2025 Tours de France (credit: Ole Kristian Berg)<\/p>\n

He then used these to work out estimates for the world champion\u2019s critical power (the highest power a rider can sustain for 40 minutes) and validated those findings by comparing them to fellow Tour rider Derek Gee, who reported his power meter data on Strava.<\/p>\n

Across the six climbs covered in the study, Poga\u010dar consistently climbed at 6.4 to 7 watts per kilo, averaging between 421 and 462 watts.<\/p>\n

\"TadejTadej Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard, Mont Ventoux, stage 16, 2025 Tour de France (credit: ASO\/Billy Ceusters)<\/p>\n

His highest numbers came on this year\u2019s stage to Peyragudes, a short mountain time trial, while his lowest figures were recorded on Mont Ventoux a few days later, where he still broke Iban Mayo\u2019s 21-year-old record on the Giant of Provence<\/a>.<\/p>\n

That Ventoux performance was achieved despite the yellow jersey being engaged in a tactical battle behind the breakaway with Jonas Vingegaard, riding into a headwind, and where it is likely his reported knee pain, which hindered his final week at the 2025 Tour, first began to flare up<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Poga\u010dar\u2019s most impressive single performance at the last two Tours came at Plateau de Beille, where he put over a minute into Vingegaard and shattered Marco Pantani\u2019s longstanding record on the Pyrenean climb<\/a>, climbing at 6.9w\/kg, having already covered almost 200km over four previous category one ascents.<\/p>\n

Berg then calculated Poga\u010dar\u2019s VO2 max using the established assumption that critical power in elite cyclists likely occurs at 85 to 90 per cent of VO2 max.<\/p>\n

\"TadejTadej Poga\u010dar wins stage 15, 2024 Tour de France (credit: Zac Williams\/SWpix.com)<\/p>\n

The researcher recorded that the \u201cvalues obtained for Plateau de Beille in 2024 would indicate that the V\u0307O2 max during this race was in the range of around 91 \u201396ml\/kg\/min for this rider, likely in the higher end of the spectrum given that the preceding part of the stage and previous race days may\u00a0 have lowered his CP slightly compared to optimal conditions\u201d.<\/p>\n

Berg also noted that \u201cprevious endurance efforts may have slightly reduced the gross efficiency of\u00a0the rider, making the effort more costly in V\u0307O2, which would indicate higher values of V\u0307O2 max\u201d.<\/p>\n

The researcher did point out, however, that factors such as wind direction and drafting were not taken into account in his analysis, all based on secondary data, though he notes these would have been less relevant on the steeper climbs, especially in the Peyragudes time trial, where naturally drafting was not an issue.<\/p>\n

\"TadejTadej Poga\u010dar, stage 12 of 2025 Tour de France (credit: Zac Williams\/SWpix.com)<\/p>\n

According to Berg, if tested under lab conditions, away from the fatigue and tactical racing of the Tour, it is highly likely that Poga\u010dar would post a VO2 max in the high 90s.<\/p>\n

Those results, Berg says, are indicative of the \u201cextreme underlying physiology\u201d that has propelled the Slovenian to his position as one of the sport\u2019s all-time greats.<\/p>\n

So, in short, Tadej Poga\u010dar is a pretty good bike rider, maybe one of the best we\u2019ve ever seen. Groundbreaking stuff, I know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Professional cycling, especially in the 2020s, has increasingly become a numbers game. In an era of sports scientists…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":303177,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-303176","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303176"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303176\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}