Back in 2020, when Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) lined up for his first Tour de France and went straight to the top step of the overall podium, the then 21-year-old covered the 3,482km journey from Nice to Paris in 87 hours, delivering an average of 39.868 km/h.
Snap forward to 2026, and the Slovenian talisman has upped the ante once again, delivering an average that exceeds 43 km/h for the first time, 43.227 to be exact, according to a report from Tissot timing. It's a final speed that is almost half a kilometre faster than the pace of 42.728km/h in 2025, which was the quickest Tour de France on record until Sunday.
The record-breaking average also came in an edition when another speed record fell, with the peloton delivering a never-before-seen stage average of 50.9km on stage 11, a 161.3-kilometre sprint stage from Vichy to Nevers, 27 years after Mario Cipollini set the mark in 1999.
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Tour de France average speed
2026 - 43.227 km/h
2025 - 42.728 km/h
2024 - 41.808 km/h
2023 - 41.427 km/h
2022 - 42.026 km/h
2021 - 41.160 km/h
2020 - 39.868 km/h
The new overall record was another mark in the history books for five-time winner Pogačar when he stopped the clock for the 2026 Tour de France, a considerably shorter 3,197km, on the Champs-Elysées at 73:56:26, after helping stage winner Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) give the sprinters a run for their money with a launch on the last Butte Montmartre climb.
Van der Poel held firm, but Pogačar didn't, which meant he missed out on becoming the first rider in the yellow jersey to win in Paris since Bernard Hinault in 1982, but there were plenty more records he did deliver on.
The Slovenian is now among a prestigious handful of riders who have taken five overall victories – Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain being the others – and he has now dethroned Merckx as the youngest to achieve this. On top of that, Pogačar has now reached the final podium of the Tour de France for seven consecutive editions – taking second in 2022 and 2023 – a feat where he stands in a league of his own.
What's more, the margin he delivered on Sunday to a second-placed Remco Evenepoel (Red Bull-Bora Hansgrohe) was his largest ever, stretching out to 6:26 – a considerably more comfortable gap than the 59 seconds he held to Primož Roglič back in 2020.
Although much has changed since then and plenty are prepared to make the call that there are more records on the horizon in the years to come, particularly with Pogačar's five stage wins this Tour to take his total to 26, putting him another step closer to Mark Cavendish's total of 35.
Perhaps the average speed might even go up again in 2027, as Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad pursue a sixth title for the rider who, at this point, appears unstoppable.
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