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Tadej Pogacar put further distance between himself and his last few rivals, winning the Alpe d’Huez stage of the Tour de France and extending his overall lead to more than seven minutes.
There was a brutal inevitability about the defending Tour champion’s record-breaking win on the legendary climb of the Alpe, despite all the rumours of illness and gastric problems within his UAE Emirates XRG team.
Pogacar’s climbing time, of 35 minutes and 26 seconds, shattered the longstanding record set by Marco Pantani in 1997. “I don’t know what the time of Pantani was,” he said. “I don’t take too much into that, but I heard that I broke it, so I’m happy.
“I just wanted to do a good race and to win. A 30-something years record finally broken is good for us.”
It does not matter what colour Pogacar’s shorts are, he still wins. So feverish was the speculation over Pogacar switching from yellow shorts to black earlier this week that one French TV commentator even suggested it was to conceal an excess of flatulence.
But the only wind emanating from the four-time Tour winner, now close to taking a record-equalling fifth win in Paris on Sunday, comes from the metronomic climbing style that fuelled an extraordinary ascent of the Alpe’s 21 hairpin bends.
The Slovene looked the picture of health as he sped up the 13.8km climb, the theatre for many of the Tour’s most dramatic finishes, and, with one final mountain stage still to come, seems assured of overall victory in Paris.
The old adage, that the Tour is won on the Alpe, was proven again with Pogacar’s latest demolition of his hapless rivals. With 25km left to race, the day’s breakaway led by almost four minutes, but 3km from the finish Pogacar had eroded their lead and drew alongside them.
Huge and rowdy crowds, estimated to be in the region of 500,000, which at times seemed out of control, greeted the riders at the foot of the Alpe. Some had arrived six days in advance, while others seemed too intoxicated to know why they were there in the first place.
Despite that the Slovene was inexorable, hunting down the escapees as he rode through the tiny funnel of space created by the thousands of near-hysterical fans. The damage to his rivals was extensive, with Remco Evenepoel the least affected by the onslaught. The Belgian remains in second place overall but any hopes of challenging for the final victory are long gone.
On another day of desperation for the teams that have yet to taste success in this year’s Tour, a big breakaway took shape on the early climbs of the Bayard and Noyer. In that leading group of 40 were some now familiar names, the including past stage winners Richard Carapaz, Thymen Arensman – winner of two stages in 2025 – and the recovering Adam Yates, teammate to Pogacar, who won in Bilbao in 2023.
Best placed of the dwindling lead group was Lenny Martinez, the 23-year-old Frenchman from the Bahrain Victorious team, who has become a pet project for the former Team Sky and Ineos coach Rod Ellingworth.
But as soon as the leaders arrived at the first steep ramps of the Alpe, the stage took on a new look, as Pogacar easily shifted up a gear.
Arensman attacked just over 12km from the finish, taking Martinez, Sepp Kuss and Carapaz with him, but his moved was short-lived and with Pogacar in full flight, Kuss, Martinez and Carapaz began to look over their shoulders.
It was a Lazarus-like performance from Adam Yates, who was so sick earlier this week that he was barely able to pedal through the finish line to his team bus after Wednesday’s stage to Voiron.
Pogacar’s decisive acceleration came 12km from the summit and immediately left his closest rivals in his wake. After joining forces with a clearly recovered Yates, the pair ate into the break’s advantage, until with 10km remaining, Pogacar set off alone.
What came next, was almost inevitable. It was a cruel and relentless win that reeled Carapaz – the stage 18 winner – Martinez and the absent Jonas Vingegaard’s Visma-Lease a bike teammate Kuss.
The leader has five wins in 19 stages and Saturday’s “queen” stage, over four of the hardest climbs in the Alps, offers the gluttonous Pogacar the chance to take a sixth.
