Updated December 27, 2025 09:24AM
Tadej Pogačar was on another unstoppable tear in 2025.
He seemingly had everyone’s number in every race he started. More records fell, he won another Tour de France yellow, and he finished off another season No. 1 in the world rankings.
With 20 wins on the season, including a second straight rainbow jersey and a record-tying fifth Il Lombardia crown, he was seemingly invincible.
Yet on a few occasions this season, Pogačar did get beaten. It’s not as if the Slovenian is suddenly mortal or if his rivals figured out the Pogačar code.
It took master tacticians, once-in-a-lifetime rides, or freak errors to topple the 21st Century GOAT.
From San Remo to Roubaix, Siena to Kigali, these were the handful of days when someone — or something — earned the right to be called a Pog-Slayer.
Here they are:
A Tuscan thorn bush bloodies (but doesn’t beat) Pogačar at Strade Bianche
Pogačar crashed but still won Strade Bianche. (Photo: Chris Auld/Velo)
Tom Pidcock was a temporary thorn in Pogačar’s side through the final of Strade Bianche. A roadside bush delivered multiple thorns into Pogi’s white-shorted rump a little longer, however.
Pogačar’s torn-up skin and shredded rainbow apparel looked like a pincushion after he overshot a descending corner in the final of the sterrato classic in March. The uncharacteristic error sent Pogačar cartwheeling into a ditch, only for his trajectory to be broken by a very prickly bush.
Sadly for Pidcock, a bunch of thorns didn’t hold back Pogačar.
The bloodied-up world champion and his barbed backside hopped back onto the bike and blew the Brit away 20km from the line.
According to team staff, there were “dozens and dozens” of thorns still embedded in Pogi’s skin after he’d rushed to the finish in Siena. His triumphant final solo was no doubt hastened by the urge to find a good set of tweezers.
— Jim Cotton
Outfoxed by Van der Poel down the Via Roma
Van der Poel outfoxed Pogačar in an epic battle at San Remo. (Photo: Chris Auld/Velo)
Pogačar ripped up the script for San Remo in what’s called the easiest monument to finish and the hardest to win, and dared to attack on the Cipressa. No one’s managed to win from there since 1990s, but Pogačar is all about defying convention.
The problem was, he found company in Mathieu van der Poel and Filippo Ganna, and the table was set for one of the most epic San Remo finales ever.
The trio held off the stunned peloton, carrying a 33-second lead onto the base of the Poggio. That’s where the action usually lights up, and Pogi doubled down with a string of searing attacks. Ganna was gapped, but Van der Poel answered and even countered near the top of the Poggio.
Ganna descended like a bullet to claw back contact just before the Via Roma. Van der Poel led out the sprint from 300 meters out and dared the others to come around. They could not. Pogačar’s audacity was answered by Van der Poel’s racing acumen.
Van der Poel is perhaps the only rider who consistently is able to beat Pogačar, at least on favored terrain like San Remo.
— Andrew Hood
Paris Roubaix dream ended with one corner bien cuit …
Pogačar would overcook a corner late in the race that cost him a chance at victory. (Photo: Chris Auld/Velo)
Pogačar and his impossible Paris-Roubaix dream unraveled in an instant with one corner too many.
Pogi was riding shoulder to shoulder with MVDP deep into his odds-defying debut at the “Hell of the North.” Looking flawless, Pogacar was snubbing his nose convention to try to become the first Tour de France winner to win Paris-Roubaix since Bernard Hinault.
Things were looking dreamy when the race darkened into a nightmare in a fraction of a second. It wasn’t a puncture or a high-speed crash, but rather a mistake in misjudging a corner.
With the race entering the final hour, the pair were off the front, but Pogačar either misjudged the line or perhaps was following the line of a motorbike that was edging off the side of the course.
It all happened on a right-hand bend on the cobbles of Pont-Thibault à Ennevelin with about 38km to go. Carrying full speed into Sector 9, Pogačar overcooked the corner, got tangled up in the mud and turf, and tumbled off the bike. No high-speed impact or bloody injuries, but just a momentary wobble that cost him the race.
MVDP kept charging at the front — there’s no waiting in a scenario like this — and Pogačar had to roll in with second.
It’s impossible to say what might have happened. Van der Poel seemed to be on the limit and might have cracked deeper into the race. But there are no hypothetical replays in cycling.
Of all the things that stopped him in 2025, this one was a turn taken too fast.
Chalk up another one for Van der Poel as the peloton’s most reliable Pog-Slayer. (AH)
Skjelmose downs two kings in one at Amstel Gold Race
Skjelmose is all smiles after winning Amstel Gold Race. (Photo: Tim De Waele/Getty Images)
Mattias Skjelmose was the star of perhaps the most “WTF” finales of all men’s cycling in 2025.
Long, lean Skjelly outkicked both Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel at Amstel Gold Race after a Pogi long-bomb fell short.
For Skjelmose, it really was two for the price of one in the Giant Killing stakes.
And both his victims were left somewhat aggrieved.
Skjelmose reaped the ultimate reward from a ride on the “Remco Express” through the final of the hilly classic.
When Pogi attacked around 50km out, Skjelmose and the TT king “collaborated” in the chase. If Remco doing 90 percent of the work counts as collaborating, that is.
The pair somehow reeled in “King Pog” 8km from the line, and Skjelmose finished the job in a 3-up sprint.
Then only 24, Skjelmose couldn’t believe it either. (JC)
Van Aert buried him on Montmartre
Van Aert risked everything to drop Pogačar to win in Paris. (Photo: Chris Auld/Velo)
Pogačar had the yellow jersey in a bag and only needed to coast around the Montmartre circuit to win a fourth title.
But of course, Pogačar was never going to do that. And with hundreds of thousands of fans lining the roads, he wasn’t about to let them down.
Wout van Aert had something else to prove. After being riddled by injury going back to the 2024 Vuelta, the Belgian superstar had been on a futile chase to win across the entire Tour. Paris was his final chance, and he and Pogačar lit up the front, and the crowds went nuts.
Sport directors and UAE managers were chewing their nails down to bony stubs as Van Aert and Pogačar traded blows on the wet, treacherous roads, so slick that Tour officials neutralized the times on the closing circuit.
Van Aert kept piling on, and Pogačar finally eased off the gas. The Belgian had his win, and Pogačar had the jersey.
And the fans went wild on the Monmartre mayhem. (AH)
Evenepoel serves Pogačar a dose of his own medicine in Kigali
Evenepoel powered to victory in Rwanda at the time trial world championships. (Photo: Chris Auld/Velo)
The cheers of beered-up fans back in Belgium echoed all the way over to Kigali this September when Remco Evenepoel caught and dropped Pogačar at the world championship time trial.
After starting two and a half minutes back on King Pog, Evenepoel had rocketed through the hills of Kigali like a Pogi-seeking missile. He picked off his victims one-by-one until he bridged to Pogačar and his lime green skinsuit as the Slovenian labored up the cobblestone Cöte de Kimihurura at around 1km to go.
Pogačar kept close to Evenepoel’s wheel for a few seconds before “the aero bullet” sent beers and frites flying all through Belgium as he peeled away for his third straight TT world title.
Evenepoel served Pogačar a dose of his own medicine that day in Kigali.
The memory must have been some antidote for Remco when Pogačar spiked him three times in the three following weekends. (JC)