Tadej Pogačar was more than three years away from being born the last time someone rode up Alpe d’Huez faster than him.
On stage 10 of the 1995 Tour de France, the controversial Marco Pantani flew up the Alpe d’Huez in 36:40. 31 years later, on stage 19 of the 2026 Tour, UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s Pogačar rode the famous climb in a reported 35:26, 1:14 faster than Pantani’s time.
Not that it means much to the Slovenian: “I actually don’t know what the time of Pantani was to be honest. I’m staying off the internet a lot in the last weeks, and I don’t take too much into that,” the world champion said after his latest win.
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“I heard that I broke the record, so I’m happy. I just wanted to do a good race and win today. For the guys. Also, I don’t know how old, 30 years old record, finally broken, is good for us.”
The victory was Pogačar’s fifth of the race, his 26th stage win overall, and means he now has a lead of more than seven minutes over second-placed Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).
It was dominant performance, as he attacked on the final climb of the day from the GC group, 12km from the top, and picked off riders from the break one by one. From a deficit of 3:25 at the bottom, he overhauled them all. The last survivors were Richard Carapaz (EF Education-EasyPost), Sepp Kuss (Visma-Lease a Bike), and Lenny Martinez (Bahrain Victorious), with Carapaz and Martinez finally dispatched with 800m to go.
The Alpe, the record, this is supposed to be special. Asked how much this result meant to him, Pogačar answered: “I would say as much as any other win, but now that every single journalist says how big this win is, maybe I’ll start to realise how big this win is. Maybe I’ll appreciate it once it settles down.”
(Image credit: Getty Images)
It meant a lot to his team, however, with his sports directors Joxean Fernández Matxín and Andrej Hauptman overjoyed that their charge had done it again, with the former in tears at the finish.
“I didn’t know…” Pogačar started. “I don’t know why they got so emotional as men. I don’t cry often, I guess it meant a lot to the team. Also, the way we are riding as a team, not just the victory, the team spirit and all, it cannot be better, even with the rough days of the last days, the team spirit cannot be better than when we win. It’s a reward for all, and then emotions come to the surface.”
Those “rough days” for UAE saw Brandon McNulty abandon, and both Adam Yates and Tim Wellens fall ill to a stomach bug.
“Adam was really bad on the TT day, he was white like a wall,” the yellow jersey explained. “Today I was so happy when I caught him on the last climb to ride behind him. Felix [Großschartner] had to do all the work in the last few days because Tim was also feeling sick, Brandon also went home. Guys don’t feel like themselves, but today we stepped up again.
“They believed we could win and it was just nice to seal the deal today after a couple of rough days for the guys. This one is for the teammates.”
Pogačar now leads the 2026 Tour by 7:11, which would be the biggest winning margin of any of his five Tours if the race ends with him on top, as it is likely to. That gap is helped by the absence of Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike), but it proves his utter supremacy.
(Image credit: Getty Images)
On French TV, they compared Pogačar to Pac-Man, a yellow character gobbling up all before him. In this Tour, however, there are no ghosts to threaten the main character; he looks unbeatable. Even illness within his team hasn’t held him back.
He is a man used to gobbling up riders ahead of him. Asked what it’s like to overtake rivals, he said: “Some riders, you can see that they’re already taking it a bit easier to go to the top, and maybe with some riders we have good energy. With [Harold] Tejada we smiled at each other, then some riders… it’s a good feeling when you pass somebody. Some riders stick on the wheel to see how fast I am going, and it’s a compliment a little bit.
“It gives a lot of motivation when you catch riders, and today there was a lot of riders in front so it was good to go and catch them one by one. Chapeau to everyone in the front.”
It feels like a given now that Pogačar was going to gobble them all up, including Kuss, Carapaz and Martinez, but it wasn’t always so, and Pogačar himself wasn’t certain.
“The moment I started to believe was when I heard on the radio that they started to attack each other,” he explained. “Then I knew that it was on and off. Then 5km to go… I don’t know how much the gap was, if I kept this pace maybe I catch them just before this right turn. When it was the barriers, I could see them finally, and I saw they were looking at each other.
“I knew I could catch them, but also somebody was saving a bit, so I was quite in doubt. Then Sepp attacked, and I was like, ‘Fuck they’re gone again, I will not be able to catch’. That was the last resource of Sepp. Then Lenny was incredible, he was on my wheel, I didn’t think I was able to catch him. I was barely able to catch Richard. We were all at the limit. I tried not to come to a three man sprint.
“I accelerated with 1km to go, 800m to go, I gave it all. It was one of the hardest wins for me, and chapeau to all the breakaway riders, they were smart today with a lot of teammates in front. Today was a battle of teams, and in the end we could pull it off.”
Despite a team under the weather, held back by illness, Pogačar the Pac-Man couldn’t be stopped. Pantani’s record gone, the Tour de France overall victory record of five in touching distance, what’s next? If Merckx was the cannibal, Pogačar is just as voracious.
