{"id":560716,"date":"2026-07-26T18:53:10","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T18:53:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/560716\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T18:53:10","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T18:53:10","slug":"relentless-tadej-pogacar-wins-fifth-tour-de-france-to-equal-record-tour-de-france-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/560716\/","title":{"rendered":"Relentless Tadej Pogacar wins fifth Tour de France to equal record | Tour de France 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadej Pogacar took a record-equalling fifth win in the Tour de France<\/a> on Sunday, joining Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indur\u00e1in in the canon of the Tour\u2019s most successful cyclists. In a thrilling finale to the Tour, Mathieu van der Poel took his second stage win of the race on the Champs-\u00c9lysees, fending off the pursuing pack of sprinters by a tyre\u2019s width, after breaking clear with Pogacar on the final climb of the Butte de Montmartre.<\/p>\n

Merckx, widely considered the greatest-ever cyclist due to the breadth of his achievements beyond the Tour itself, believes Pogacar will now go on to win a sixth Tour. \u201cI don\u2019t think he\u2019ll be content just to draw level with me and the other \u00adchampions,\u201d the 81-year-old Belgian said. \u201cHe\u2019ll soon break our record for Tour victories.\u201d<\/p>\n

From Montju\u00efc to Montmartre, Pogacar and the stifling temperatures suffocated the 2026 Tour. A race staged against the backdrop of heatwaves and wildfires, culminated in the inevitable \u2013 a fifth win for the relentless Slovene.<\/p>\n

Pogacar had no equal in this Tour de France, breaking records on two of the most daunting climbs in cycling, the Col du Tourmalet and Alpe d\u2019Huez, and shepherding his protege, Isaac del Toro, to third place in the final standings.<\/p>\n

Tadej Pogacar (left) helped his protege Isaac del Toro to third place in the general classification. Photograph: Mosa\u2019ab Elshamy\/AP<\/p>\n

In another life, the Olympic road race champion, Remco Evenepoel, would probably have won his first Tour, and French debutant Paul Seixas climbed on to the podium. It is their misfortune, and that of Jonas Vingegaard, who crashed out of the Tour, to race in the era of Pogacar and his impregnable UAE Emirates XRG team.<\/p>\n

A leaner, meaner and more driven Evenepoel proved his doubters wrong, reasserting himself as a genuine contender for victory in Paris. But the Belgian knows too that Pogacar may have to retire before that happens.<\/p>\n

The statistics tell the story of one of the most dominant performances in the modern history of the Tour. Pogacar won the race overall by almost six and a half minutes, took five stages and set record times for legendary climbs in the Pyrenees and Alps. He might have won six stages, had it not been for his decision to allow Del Toro to win on stage two.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did really good this Tour,\u201d Pogacar said after Saturday\u2019s stage to Alpe d\u2019Huez<\/a>, while acknowledging the bad luck of rivals such as Vingegaard and Florian Lipowitz, both of whom finished on the podium in Paris last year and both of whom crashed out of this year\u2019s race.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the Tour, it\u2019s three weeks,\u201d Pogacar said. \u201cA lot of shit can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

But his unrelenting success comes with caveats. It would be naive to celebrate a five-time Tour winner without understanding the context. There is no doubt that Pogacar is a phenomenon, but his entourage has baggage from less happy times.<\/p>\n

His team manager, Mauro \u00adGianetti, said: \u201cPogacar is so strong that no matter the team, there will be doubts concerning him.\u201d But 24 hours before the peloton arrived in Paris, Gianetti said that he was a \u201cvictim\u201d of past scandals involving riders on his teams.<\/p>\n

The most infamous is the Saunier Duval scandal of 2008, when the Gianetti-managed team quit the Tour after their star rider, Riccardo Ricc\u00f2, tested positive for a blood-doping agent. Ricc\u00f2 was fired, along with his teammate Leonardo Piepoli, and sponsors withdrew funding.<\/p>\n

Tadej Pogacar climbs the Galibier pass ahead of Remco Evenepoel and France\u2019s Paul Seixas on Saturday\u2019s stage to Alpe d\u2019huez. Photograph: Thibault Camus\/AP<\/p>\n

\u201cI made the mistake of taking them in my team,\u201d Gianetti told L\u2019\u00c9quipe. \u201cI should have reacted differently, been clearer with the press, explained that I was a victim.<\/p>\n

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\u201cYou never know what your children do in their rooms, and you certainly don\u2019t know what the riders do at home. Before signing Ricc\u00f2, I asked him to go to the UCI [the sport\u2019s governing body] to be tested. The UCI then sent me a document stating that he did indeed have a naturally occurring hematocrit level above 50%. I feel like a victim of this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The old anxieties around Pogacar\u2019s entourage resurfaced after the Slovene and Vingegaard were subjected to night-time tests by the \u00adIndependent Testing Agency (ITA) last weekend. The early hours tests were supported both by the Tour de France director, \u00adChristian Prudhomme, and the UCI.<\/p>\n

In a statement released three days after the tests, which were authorised by a Paris judge, the UCI described the controls as \u201can exceptional measure, reserved for limited and justified circumstances\u201d.<\/p>\n

Despite the interrupted sleep, Pogacar was accepting of the tests. \u201cIf this is necessary to prove that we are riding clean,\u201d he said, \u201cthen I totally accept it. I commit to it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ITA has reiterated to the Guardian that \u201cno public communication is made regarding negative results\u201d but also that \u201cthere is no date from which all tests can be considered definitively negative\u201d.<\/p>\n

To some extent, this leaves the achievements of Pogacar and those of his longstanding rival Vingegaard in limbo. Regardless, the Slovene is expected to ride August\u2019s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, in an attempt to claim the only Grand Tour title he has yet to win. Right now, the 27-year-old is at the peak of his powers and few would bet against him completing a Grand Tour grand slam.<\/p>\n

Next year, the Tour looks northwards, towards a Grand D\u00e9part in Scotland. Speaking to the Guardian last week, Prudhomme described Edinburgh as \u201ca magical city\u201d. \u201cEvery time the Tour has visited Great Britain, it has helped the Tour de France grow,\u201d he said. \u201cIf the Tour can help bring major cycling events back to different parts of Great Britain, that would be fantastic. The UK has given the Tour an enormous amount.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Pogacar took a record-equalling fifth win in the Tour de France on Sunday, joining Jacques Anquetil, Eddy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560717,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[85,46,105],"class_list":["post-560716","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560716","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560716"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560716\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}