Tour de France race director, Christian Prudhomme has called for a salary cap in professional cycling to create a more level playing filed and reduce the domination of the biggest teams at the Tour de France.
Prudhomme, who heads the Tour de France for organising company ASO, made the claim in an interview with The Athletic, and believes such a step would ensure more suspense in the race.
The 2026 Tour de France may well have been won before Monday’s first rest day, after Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) claimed victory in Thursday’s Pyrenean stage between Pau and Gavarnie-Gèdre. The Slovenian rider attacked on the ascent of the day’s main climb, the Tourmalet, and soloed to victory, putting 2.38 into second placed Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike).
Pogačar will now start Tuesday’s 10th stage leading his Danish rival by that margin, which is more than half his overall winning margin for last year’s Tour. Pogačar’s superiority means that, barring disaster or something truly extraordinary, the Tour may well have been decided as a competition with only six of the 21 stages ridden.
Talk of a salary cap has long been spoken about in pro cycling, even when Team Sky reigned supreme, winning seven Tours in eight editions, some suggested the British squad, now riding as Netcompnay-Ineos), dominated because of the riders they were able to attract with big money contracts.
However, while Sky may have dominated the Tour for many years, they were often less successful during other times of the season. We never saw Chris Froome bagging podium finishes at Paris-Roubaix after all, though we did see him crash out of the 2014 Tour on the cobbled stage.
We have seen Pogačar finish second in the Queen of the Classics twice, he won the Tour of Flanders three times, Liège-Bastogne-Liège four times and Il Lombardia five times. He even won Milan-Sanremo, the so-called sprinters’ classic this year.
UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and Pogačar in particular, seem to dominate the entire season, the Slovenian rider only starting races he is able to win, and often doing so. This year, for example, prior to the Tour beginning, he has 13 wins from his 16 race days and the team 55 wins already this year.
And that’s before we begin to talk about Visma-Lease a Bike, with whom UAE have shared every Tour since 2020.
“We’re clearly favourable [towards it], and it exists in French rugby. There are discussions in effect with the UCI, the riders, teams and us,” Prudhome told The Athletic when asked about a salary cap.
“They have the means to buy the best riders every year,” Prudhomme continued. “So it is necessary to rebalance that. But I cannot say whether a solution will be found in the coming years.
“At the moment, the three or four richest teams hoover up all the best young riders. So that there is real competition the most promising cyclists need to go to numerous, different teams. And then, private entrepreneurs in businesses need to be able to still invest; without that, it’s too expensive… it’s very important for the future of cycling.”
While UAE are by far and away the strongest team in the sport at the moment, Pogačar’s performance last week against an in-form Vingegaard is more proof, if it were needed, that he is an outlier, and arguably the best cyclist the world sport has seen. Prudhomme’s suggestion is not about clipping Pogačar’s wings, but about creating interest, excitement and jeopardy in the racing.
“We always want to have exceptional champions and at the same time, suspense. In fact, it’s not about the winner, it’s about the manner the Tour plays out and if there is this suspense.”
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