{"id":2051308,"date":"2026-07-19T07:52:53","date_gmt":"2026-07-19T04:52:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2051308"},"modified":"2026-07-19T07:52:53","modified_gmt":"2026-07-19T04:52:53","slug":"pogacar-gobbling-up-ground-between-himself-and-cavendish-tour-stage-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2051308","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar Gobbling up Ground Between Himself and Cavendish Tour Stage Record"},"content":{"rendered":"
Saturday brought the fourth stage win of Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s 2026 Tour de France campaign and, with it, a career tally of 25 Tour victories.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s a highly impressive haul and sees Poga\u010dar share fourth place in the all-time standings. He\u2019s now level with Andr\u00e9 Leducq, who clocked up 25 stages between 1927 and 1938.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s just three off Bernard Hinault\u2019s tally of 28. More importantly, the 34 victories of Eddy Merckx and the all-time record of Mark Cavendish are now looming on the horizon.<\/p>\n
Granted, he\u2019s still 10 stages off Cavendish\u2019s standout achievement but, such is Poga\u010dar\u2019s momentum, he could conceivably equal that record as soon as next year.<\/p>\n
Not convinced? Here\u2019s why that is the case.<\/p>\n
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A run of opportunities<\/h2>\n
Poga\u010dar\u2019s four stage wins this year came inside the first 14 stages. He won stage 3 in Les Angles, stage 6 in Gavarnie-G\u00e8dre, stage 10 in Le Lioran and then Saturday\u2019s race to Le Markstein.<\/p>\n
Seven stages remain and, of those, six are viable targets.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s race to Plateau de Solaison is the first of those. It finishes with a 11.3km hors categorie climb averaging 9.1 percent in gradient. That\u2019s tailor made for a strong climber and, on the evidence of the past two weeks, Poga\u010dar is the best uphill in the race.<\/p>\n
Tuesday\u2019s stage 16 is an individual time trial which includes a category 2 climb early on. He\u2019s won four Tour de France TTs in the past and even if Remco Evenepoel will start as the big favorite in what is his best discipline, Poga\u010dar can\u2019t be ruled out.<\/p>\n
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The following day looks suited to the sprinters, but the summit finish of Orci\u00e8res-Merlette on Thursday plus the two stages to Alpe d\u2019Huez on Friday and Saturday are climber\u2019s delight.<\/p>\n
The final opportunity is next Sunday\u2019s finish in Paris. The stage to the French capital would traditionally be one for the sprinters but, in 2025, the Tour organizers took the gamble of including three ascents of the Montmartre climb.<\/p>\n
The experiment was a massive success, tilting the stage battle well away from the abilities of the fastmen and towards strong attackers.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar was on a mission to finish his 2025 Tour with a flourish and went clear in a strong group. However Wout van Aert was the day\u2019s best, sensationally dropping him on the final ascent and powering on to win.<\/p>\n
Van Aert is absent from this Tour this time around. Having lost out last year, Poga\u010dar may well want to make amends. He won\u2019t be far off if he does indeed go for it.<\/p>\n
Nervous times for the record holder<\/h2>\nIt was hugs at Milan San Remo but will Cavendish be still feting Poga\u010dar\u2019s success by the end of next year\u2019s Tour? (Photo: Tim de Waele\/Getty Images)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
So, six opportunities in the days ahead. Should he take three of them, which on current form is entirely possible, that\u2019d be seven stage victories from this year\u2019s race.<\/p>\n
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That in turn would raise his career tally to 28, level with Hinault, six off Merckx, and seven off Cavendish\u2019s record.<\/p>\n
On current form, it\u2019s not inconceivable that he could hit 35 wins by the time next year\u2019s Tour reaches an end.<\/p>\n
Even if it takes a little longer than that, you can be sure Cavendish is suddenly feeling a little vulnerable.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s even more so the case with Poga\u010dar racking up his stages at a younger age than anyone before.<\/p>\n
Time is on his side and momentum is too.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Tour de France stage wins by age 27:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n
[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Z8C_9111.jpg”] Shane Stokes Published July 19, 2026 01:52AM Saturday brought the fourth stage win of Tadej Poga\u010dar\u2019s 2026 Tour de France campaign and, with it, a career tally of 25 Tour victories. That\u2019s a highly impressive haul and sees Poga\u010dar share fourth place in the all-time standings. He\u2019s now level with Andr\u00e9 Leducq, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-2051308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2051308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2051308\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2051308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2051308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2051308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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