Since the 1970s, Eddy Merckx had been cycling’s undisputed greatest rider of all time – until Tadej Pogačar arrived.
The 26-year-old Slovenian announced himself on the world stage by winning his debut Tour de France in 2020 and has dominated most of the races he’s entered since – mastering Grand Tours and one-day Classics in a way that hasn’t been seen since the Cannibal hung up his wheels.
In 2024, he became only the third man after Merckx and Stephen Roche to claim cycling’s Triple Crown (winning the Giro d’Italia, Tour de France and world championship in the same season).
Pogačar enters the 2025 Tour de France as the clear favourite, and has already put his mark on the race, outsprinting Mathieu van der Poel to take the win on stage 4.
But who is the boyish blond-haired Slovenian? And what sets him apart from the rest of the WorldTour peloton?
1. He earns €8 million per year
As the best cyclist of his generation, it’s only fair that Pogačar is rewarded handsomely for his efforts.
La Gazzetta dello Sport reported in November 2024 that his latest contract with UAE Team Emirates-XRG sees the Slovenian earn €8 million per year until 2030, while he has a chunky €200 million buy-out clause.
His fee is the highest in the WorldTour peloton, with La Gazzetta estimating that compatriot Primož Roglič is the second-highest – earning €4.5 million per year at Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe – and Jonas Vingegaard’s annual Visma-Lease a Bike take-home third at €4 million.
2. He is engaged to pro rider Urška Žigart
The training and racing commitments of a pro cyclist can make finding time for love hard.
But Pogačar has found a sympathetic partner in Urška Žigart – a fellow professional cyclist for Women’s WorldTour team, AG Insurance-Soudal.
The pair met on a City Ljubljana cycling program training camp in 2017 and have been engaged since 2021. In fact, Žigart’s non-selection for the Paris 2024 Olympics is said to have swayed Pogacar’s decision not to compete himself.
3. His FTP is 415 watts
The Slovenian is a beast on the bike who is equally at home in one-day races and mountain-top finishes of a Grand Tour, and it’s largely thanks to an out-of-this-world functional threshold power (FTP).
X user Ryan Rodman calculated that based on a screenshot of his head unit, Pog set an FTP of 415 watts during a training ride for last year’s world championships (which Pogačar went on to win).
4. He is 1.77m and his race weight drops to 64.5kg
While the Slovenian can’t be accused of being average, his height and weight are where he’s around the middle of the pack.
At 1.77m, he is 2cm taller than his Tour de France rival, Jonas Vingegaard, and is the same height as Roglič.
His weight fluctuates and he revealed to longevity expert Peter Attia that his natural weight is 69kg, but dropped as low as 64.5kg for the start of the 2024 Tour de France.
5. He was the youngest rider to win the Tour in over a century, and the second youngest ever
While a third place in 2019’s La Vuelta signalled that Pogačar had Grand Tour potential, the then 21-year-old announced himself on the grandest stage of them all by winning his debut Tour de France.
The Covid-impacted race was held in September 2020, and meant Pogačar secured his victory on the streets of Paris aged 21 and 365 days old – the youngest winner in over a century and second only to Henri Cornet, who won in 1904 aged 19 and 352 days.
6. He lives in Monaco
Although he grew up Klanec, a small village on the outskirts of the Slovenian capital Ljubljana, Pogačar has lived in Monaco since winter 2020.
He moved to the principality for the warm weather and is among a number of professional riders to call the city-state home, including Roglič, Chris Froome and Peter Sagan.
7. He’s in the top 10 of Tour de France overall and stage wins
Most professional cyclists spend their whole careers trying and failing to win a Tour de France stage. But Pog isn’t like most pros.
The 2025 edition is Pogačar's 6th Tour de France. In that time, he has clinched the yellow jersey three times, propelling him to joint 6th in the overall list, with only Chris Froome (four wins) and Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jaques Anquetil and Miguel Indurain (five) ahead of him.
In that time – and including today's stage win – he’s racked up 18 stage wins.
8. He’s finished on the podium of every Grand Tour he’s entered
Pogačar is well known for his three Tours de France wins and his 2024 Giro d’Italia maglia rosa, but even in the Grand Tours he hasn’t won, he’s never finished off the podium.
In his Grand Tour debut, 2019’s La Vuelta, the then 20-year-old finished third, while in the two Tours de France he’s lost to Jonas Vingegaard, he’s still finished as the second-fastest overall rider.
From his seven Grand Tours, he’s also won the youth jersey five times (one La Vuelta and four Tours de France) and the mountains jersey three times (two Tours de France and one Giro d’Italia).
9. He rides a Colnago V5Rs (among other bikes)
The Slovenian’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad is sponsored by iconic Italian brand bike, Colnago.
Pogačar typically rides the V5Rs, launched in April as a replacement to the V4Rs. It's Colnago's pro-focused all-rounder, but Pogačar also has the Y1Rs aero bike at his disposal.
We got hands-on with Pogačar's V5Rs at the Grand Départ of the 2025 Tour de France in Lille. It was equipped with a Shimano Dura-Ace Di2 groupset, with CarbonTi chainrings. It also featured a new set of ENVE SES 4.5 Pro wheels.
The V5Rs is Pogačar's go-to bike but he also rides the Y1Rs on flatter stages. Like the V5Rs, it's painted in world champion colours, to match the rainbow jersey that Pogačar won in 2024.
As for time trials, Pogačar rides the Colnago TT1.
10. He was the Slovenian national cyclocross champ
A lot is made of Mathieu van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Tom Pidcock’s multi-discipline mastery, but Pogačar has also dipped his toe into the world of cyclocross.
The phenom won the Slovenian national championship in 2018 and has competed in Ciklokros Ljubljana twice, winning in 2021 and finishing second in 2022.
However, he’s yet to line up at a UCI CX World Cup or category-one race.
1.1. He has more than 2,500 KOMs on Strava
Pogačar is one of the few pros worth following on Strava, and isn’t shy about uploading the occasional race-winning ride (although his heart rate and power data is understandably hidden).
Even though he doesn’t share every training session, he’s managed to amass more than 2,500 KOMs on the app, including the Koppenberg, Mons-en-Pévèle – and Yorkshire’s own Buttertubs Pass.
More on Tadej Pogačar
- Tour de France 2025 preview: Pogačar vs Vingegaard and four more essential talking points
- We've weighed Tadej Pogačar’s Tour de France bike – and it's currently under the UCI weight limit
- Seven remarkable numbers behind Tadej Pogačar's Tour de France success
- How Tadej Pogačar became an all-terrain winning machine – the inside view
- Why Tadej Pogačar's Paris-Roubaix debut changes everything
