UAE Team Emirates – XRG<\/a>. In the years since the project took flight, Pogacar has become more than the team\u2019s talisman \u2014 he has become a national sporting reference point. Cycling academies, community rides and packed roadside crowds at the UAE Tour all trace their roots back to the success spearheaded by the 27-year-old.<\/p>\nPogacar\u2019s 2025 campaign was a season of imperial dominance rather than discovery. He secured his fourth Tour de France title (following victories in 2020, 2021 and 2024), became World Road Race Champion for a second consecutive year, added the European Road title, and swept an extraordinary three Monuments \u2014 Flanders, Liege and a record-extending fifth straight Lombardia. It was a year that confirmed not just supremacy, but continuity: an all-conditions, all-terrain champion defending every frontier at once.<\/p>\n
Joining rare company in cycling\u2019s sculpted history<\/p>\n
Cycling has honoured few athletes in permanent form, and each monument carries its own mythology. Tom Boonen\u2019s sculpted legs overlooking the pave of the Taaienberg. Octave Lapize\u2019s giant sentinel on the Tourmalet. Nairo Quintana cast in full figure in Boyaca. Sir Bradley Wiggins immortalised in London bronze after Olympic glory.<\/p>\n
Now Pogacar joins that select roll of riders granted physical permanency \u2014 his tribute standing not in Europe but in the Gulf, marking the shifting axis of global cycling influence as much as his personal greatness.<\/p>\n
A golden era \u2014 and a reminder it isn\u2019t finished<\/p>\n
The timing of the installation is no coincidence. With the 2025 season freshly wrapped and rivals sharpening plans for 2026, the statue feels as much like a celebration as a challenge. A signal that the bar has been set \u2014 and set high.<\/p>\n
Pogacar\u2019s bow began as a post-race flourish. In gold, it becomes something else: a reminder that dominance need not roar to be heard, and that the sport\u2019s most decisive moves are sometimes followed by quiet humility.<\/p>\n
His rivals will study power files, altitude camps and race schedules. The UAE has chosen a different statement entirely: the champion is not done, and they are building history around him.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A rider reflected in culture, not simply results Many sporting monuments celebrate muscle and fury. This one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-238221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}