Dominant. Imperious. Commanding. The adjectives commonly applied to the all-conquering Tadej Pogačar are all appropriate to describe his overall victory at the Tour de Suisse, where the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider won three of the five stages.
The victory told us little we didn’t already know ahead of his attempt next month to win a record-equalling fifth Tour de France. Many of the qualities that have made him the greatest rider of his generation and, for some, the greatest of all time, were on display at the 89th Tour de Suisse.
But the race's opening stage witnessed the return of Tadej the Insatiable, the instinctive racer who wins even when he has no plans to do so. He rode away from Fredrik Dversnes (Uno-X), the sole survivor of the early break, seemingly by accident, for the gap he opened over the Norwegian resulted from nothing so definite as an attack or even an acceleration.
During the next 70 kilometres or so, he sat up on a climb and adjusted his radio, scratched his back, took in the scenery and asked a moto pilot for a time check, all while fending off the determined pursuit of Richard Carapaz (EF Education–EasyPost), a former Olympic champion and winner of the 2019 Giro d’Italia.
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Annihilating rivals
Four days later, Carapaz was the only rider even willing to pursue Pogačar when the race leader launched his decisive attack on the last of three ascents of the soaring Col de la Croix. Carapaz’s bravery resulted in another familiar scene, that of the bold (foolish?) pursuer melting like wax in the heat of Pogačar’s slipstream and falling, Icarus-like, back down the mountain.
Amazingly, Pogačar’s annihilation of all his rivals on a brutal concluding stage with 4,451 metres of vertical ascent was not even his most impressive performance. That had come 24 hours earlier, in the stage four time trial, where he hustled his new Colnago TT2 around a flat, 23.7km time-trial course 0.3 seconds faster than Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin–Premier Tech).
Pogačar’s rivalry with Van der Poel is nothing new, of course, but their intense, if good-natured, combats typically take place in the Cobbled Classics. In Aarburg, Van der Poel deployed all of his legendary bike-handling skills to obliterate the times set by all but the last man to leave the start house.
The Slovenian’s willingness to take similarly outrageous risks to the seven-time cyclocross world champion brought to mind his 100kph descent of the Col d’Eze in 2024, where he risked his third Tour victory on the final stage. Tadej the Insatiable, again.
More aces in the pack
A more subtle takeaway from Pogačar’s triumph in Switzerland could be gained from the two days on which he didn’t win. On both occasions (stages two and three), he focused his efforts on securing victory for teammate Jhonatan Narváez.
Only when the three-time Ecuadorian champion failed to capitalise on stage two did Pogačar take matters into his own hands, finishing eighth, only four seconds behind the victorious breakaway. A day later, Narváez justified his leader’s confidence by winning after 112 kilometres in the break.
Narváez’s performances (he won three times at last month’s Giro d’Italia) and those of his teammates might provide Pogačar’s Tour rivals with something extra to chew upon.
Examples are too numerous to mention, but Isaac Del Torro’s victory at the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, achieved with a nonchalance to match Pogačar’s, proved that while the world champion might be UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s trump card, he is far from its only ace.
Pogačar’s rivals
What now for the three men who might have harboured legitimate hopes of defeating Pogačar next month in cycling’s greatest race? Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), and Paul Seixas (Decathlon-CMA CGM), all, to greater or lesser extents, had reasons to be cheerful before Pogačar resumed racing last week. Whether they are still sanguine is debatable.
In winning the Giro d’Italia in May, and becoming only the eighth man in cycling history to complete a Grand Tour grand slam, Vingegaard looked close to his best for the first time since suffering life-threatening injuries in a crash at the 2024 Itzulia Basque Country. Even his dominant campaign at the Corsa Rosa (five stage wins and the overall victory) lacked the panache of Pogačar’s six-stage haul two years earlier, however.
A fortnight ago, Evenepoel was confident enough to reveal his threshold power in a video shot at his Mount Teide training camp: around 425 watts. Whether he would still be so bold is an open question. The adage concerning the unhappy relationship of pride to falls, the former often serving as a vainglorious prelude to the latter, might now resonate with the Belgian.
Seixas might be pondering the hugely ambitious expectations he and his compatriots had cherished for his Tour debut. The 19-year-old was the self-confessed author of his own misfortunes on stage seven of the recent Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and climbed off on stage eight. Anything can be forgiven of a rider so young (and gifted), but it’s hard to view his performance in the Tour’s traditional form-finder as anything other than a reality check.
A flawless build-up
In contrast to Seixas, Pogačar’s build-up has been flawless. He has won 11 times from 16 starts, scoring repeat victories at Strade Bianche, the Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and winning for the first time at Milan-San Remo, the Tour de Romandie and the Tour de Suisse. He has helped others as well as himself and can rely on the support of cycling’s top-ranked team.
Can anyone prevent Pogačar from winning a fifth Tour and taking his place alongside cycling immortals Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain? The prospect of him being defeated seems more improbable than ever, but nothing in a three-week bike race is impossible.
Prepare a fresh Coupe Omnisports trophy by all means, but wait until Paris before handing it to Pogačar. Even he must finish the Tour before being crowned champion.
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