Tadej Poga\u010dar says he wants to live in the moment and not think about history.<\/p>\n
But now the Slovenian has made it by winning a record-equalling fifth Tour de France and cycling\u2019s superstar cannot hide his disbelief.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is something you won\u2019t even maybe write in a story book. It is unbelievable also for me,\u201d he told TNT Sports post-race.<\/p>\n
So much talent, work and suffering has gone into the Slovenian\u2019s reign since he shocked fellow countryman Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d to win on his Tour debut in 2020.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar believes the most important thing is to \u201cenjoy what you are doing and you have people around you that you trust and that they help you,\u201d he said. \u201cThat they are there for you when you are at your lowest, then you can build yourself and chase your dreams.<\/p>\n
Surely he has surpassed his wildest ones. Now there is a symmetrical five in the club of five-time Tour winners as he joins Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indur\u00e1in .<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to set your goals, always. I need to find a new goal now after this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Crits then an anticipated Vuelta bid<\/h2>\n
Poga\u010dar cannot go too hard in his post-Tour party in Paris. He flies home tomorrow, with a Friday criterium in his home town of Komenda including some leading Tour racers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThen I hope I can see some stages of the Tour de France Femmes to see Ur\u0161ka riding,\u201d he added, speaking to written media in his post-race press conference.<\/p>\n
As for a tilt at another grand tour, the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a, which starts in late August? \u201cIf it started tomorrow, I\u2019d probably say no, but in two weeks, I can still decide,\u201d he said, smiling.<\/p>\n
Prince Albert of Monaco, the location of the race start, indicated earlier in the Tour that Poga\u010dar said he will compete.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar is blazing a path through the sport\u2019s stage races, head and shoulders above his nearest rival in the last three years. However, the 27-year-old is still mindful of the possibility of burnout if he \u201cpushes too hard, too far.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo that\u2019s why I also don\u2019t want to just say now that I go to the Vuelta, that I want all the races. I need to also think about this and keep the feet on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018Crazy\u2019 doping controls at the Tour<\/h2>\n
Talk about testing has been regular background noise to the second half of the Tour after the news emerged of ITA controls in the exceptional window of 11 p.m. to 6 a.m before stage 15. Poga\u010dar called the 2 a.m. control of Vingegaard \u201ccrazy\u201d and his 5 a.m. one \u201ca little bit weird, but definitely not the weirdest.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSince I\u2019ve been riding the Tour in 2020, we\u2019ve had crazy controls, before queen stages a lot of times, almost every Tour \u2013 four or five times out of seven, a control in the bus before the stage, 30 minutes.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor me, that\u2019s even weirder but they\u2019re doing their job. It\u2019s part of my life. When I hear a knock on my door, the first thing is going in my head is that \u2018is it a control here?\u2019 For me, it\u2019s like going to the supermarket, nothing unusual anymore because I have so many of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar confirmed to Velo <\/i>that he did not have any serious sickness or injury, despite the stomach issue of Adam Yates, Brandon McNulty\u2019s sickness and Tim Wellens\u2019 illness.<\/p>\nDel Toro, the next in line?<\/h2>\n
Team UAE Emirates-XRG\u2018s two Tour stars certainly looked to be in rude health and strong comedic form.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar conducted his press conference with white jersey winner and third place finisher Isaac del Toro. Master and apprentice were together on the podium and held court at the press conference.<\/p>\n
\u201cActually, me and Isaac are big rivals. We\u2019re just playing that we\u2019re friends in front of the camera,\u201d Poga\u010dar joked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn your crit [on Friday], I\u2019ll smash you. Today, you were lucky,\u201d the Mexican said, referring to the puncture he had, which took him out of connection.<\/p>\n
Sat with Del Toro, Poga\u010dar added \u201cthe next generation is looking very sharp. I\u2019m happy to hare Isaac on my side, that I can maybe be a kind of mentor, maybe I can teach him a thing or two.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yellow jersey-wearing Poga\u010dar walked off stage giving the classic \u201cmic drop\u201d hand signal.<\/p>\n
Over and out from the Tour de France titan for another July.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2287752635-scaled.jpg”] Andy McGrath Updated July 26, 2026 03:26PM Tadej Poga\u010dar says he wants to live in the moment and not think about history. But now the Slovenian has made it by winning a record-equalling fifth Tour de France and cycling\u2019s superstar cannot hide his disbelief. \u201cIt is something you won\u2019t even maybe write […]<\/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-2064981","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\/2064981","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=2064981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2064981\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2064981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2064981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2064981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}