Pogacar wins Tour de France, matching record with fifth title
Tadej Pogacar sealed a fifth Tour de France title in Paris, matching the race record as Mathieu van der Poel won the shortened final stage.
By James Whitfield · Staff Writer
3 min read
Pogacar wins Tour de France for the fifth time after completing Sunday’s final stage into Paris, Reuters reported, putting the Slovenian level with the race’s most successful champions. The UAE Team Emirates XRG rider also secured his third straight title in cycling’s best-known race.
Pogacar, 27, needed to avoid a race-ending problem on the last day to finish the job. With the result, he joined Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain on five Tour de France victories, according to Reuters.
Belgium’s Remco Evenepoel finished second in the overall standings. Mexico’s Isaac del Toro took third place and completed the podium.
“Thank you to all the fans and to all of France for hosting this great race,” Pogacar said. “Thank you to my competitors for putting on a great show. We fought hard over the last three weeks.”
How many Tour de France titles has Pogacar won?
Pogacar has won five Tour de France titles, matching the record held by Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain. Reuters reported that he has won the race in five of the past seven years.
The latest victory came after three weeks of racing that began with the Grand Depart in Barcelona. Pogacar also won five stages during this year’s Tour, underlining his control of the race before the final run to Paris.
Van der Poel wins the final stage in Paris
Mathieu van der Poel won Stage 21 after a late attack with Pogacar on the final climb of Montmartre, Reuters reported. The pair broke clear with about 10km, or 6 miles, remaining before the chasing group narrowed the gap on the approach to the Champs-Elysees.
Pogacar lost ground inside the final kilometre, while Van der Poel held on in a photo finish. He beat Alpecin-Premier Tech teammate Jasper Philipsen, with Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen finishing third.
Van der Poel said the win carried extra meaning after missing the same moment the previous year while ill. “When I was sick last year, and I had to watch the stage on television, I was already thinking about this moment,” he said.
“I put my head down in the last 500 metres. I just went as hard as I could,” Van der Poel said. He added that winning the final stage was one of the career goals he still wanted to achieve.
Why was the final stage shortened?
The Paris finale was cut to 89km from the planned 133km after security forces were shifted to help with wildfires near Bordeaux, Reuters reported. The Tour’s final day usually brings the peloton into Paris before laps on the Champs-Elysees.
Pogacar’s path to the title became clearer when Jonas Vingegaard, a two-time Tour winner and one of his leading rivals, withdrew after a crash on Stage 15, according to Reuters. The race also produced an unusual first: no rider from France, Italy or Spain won a stage, Reuters reported, meaning the three nations that created and host cycling’s Grand Tours were absent from the stage-winners list.
This story draws on original reporting from Al Jazeera.