2025 was the year Tadej Pogačar himself said he reached his peak. The numbers certainly back him up, as he hit a century of pro wins during the Tour de France, only six and a half years after his first pro victory.
The sport's Slovenian subjugator has made crossing the line with his arms aloft a habit. In writing Pogačar's biography Unstoppable, I watched an awful lot of footage: of his interviews and press conferences, but perhaps most of all, his victories.
I'm not including overall Grand Tour or stage race wins. As prestigious and eye-catching as these are, with Pogačar, they invariably come about as a consequence of a stand-out stage win. What's more, it is very hard to compare a Grand Tour win with a stage or one-day victory in the same list.
10. 2024 Volta a Catalunya, stage 7
We expect Tadej Pogačar to challenge for any stage race, disappear into the distant horizon on any hilly or mountainous profile and finish highly in a time trial too. But when he sprinted to victory from a small bunch at last year's Volta a Catalunya, it showed yet another string to his overcrowded bow. Just when his adversaries thought they could beat him at something, anything.
It was a thriller to watch, too. In a 23-man finish, after a high-speed descent off Montjuïc hill in central Barcelona, he got the better of Dorian Godon – no slouch, beating the likes of Arnaud Démare and Tobias Lund Andresen this year.
It came the day after a 60km escape to victory on his more favoured terrain and capped the most dominant one-week stage race showing of his career. Pogačar won four of the WorldTour event's seven stages, and his 3:41 winning margin over Mikel Landa is the Volta's largest since 1983.
9. 2022 Tour de France, stage 17
By this point in the Tour de France, Pogačar found himself in a, for him, unprecedented position at the sport's biggest race – considerably behind. He was second overall, 2:22 down on Jonas Vingegaard after the Col du Granon turnaround, and had been unable to claw back time.
Weakened by injury and Covid-19 positives, UAE Team Emirates were also down to just four team members, and Marc Hirschi was limping to the finish with a bad knee.
No matter: they tore up the race anyway. Mikkel Bjerg showed his all-rounder qualities, setting a hellish pace on the Hourquette d'Ancizan that dropped Ineos Grenadiers' Adam Yates and several other contenders.
Then, Brandon McNulty took over the reins, riding hard up and down the penultimate ascent, the Col de Val Louron-Azet. By then, only yellow jersey holder Vingegaard was left. The American set the pace until the last few hundred metres on Peyragudes, leaving Pogačar to deliver the coup de grace.
His team has taken some criticism for their lack of control, especially in the first 'Pogi' years of dominance, but they were faultless here. Sure, Pogačar has enjoyed many more resounding wins, but this was an against-the-odds expression of collective resilience. He lost that year's Tour, but won that particular battle.
8. 2023 Amstel Gold Race
For me, this Ardennes Classic display just about shades it over his trio of Liège-Bastogne-Liège wins, as striking as they all are.
Usually, the strongest can get marked out of races and need to find different ways to win. Pogačar simply seems to go up the road and start the endgame earlier and earlier every season, daring others to follow him. Pre-empting is becoming impossible.
Pogačar drew a dozen away with him up the Cauberg with 76km to go. Even racing for a substantial amount of time with a flat tyre couldn't stop him. He changed his Colnago, calmly drifted back to the leaders up a climb, and his rivals were soon the ones feeling deflated.
Tipped off by Mathieu van der Poel pre-race about where to attack, Pogačar made the winning move on the Keutenberg. Ben Healy was the only man to finish within two minutes. To top it off, Pogačar even sank his podium half-pint of beer in one.
Down in one pic.twitter.com/eMA0sDuiiGApril 16, 2023
7. 2024 Giro d'Italia, stage 15
Livigno has a special place in Pogačar's heart. Years before his Giro success, he trained in the rarefied air here with Urška Žigart in the earliest days of their relationship during the summer of 2018, referencing those good memories in his press conference after winning in 2024.
Shifting out of the saddle on the penultimate climb of the Passo di Foscagno on stage 15, his rivals did not even try to follow him.
"We let Pog go and do his thing. Once that gap goes, everyone just looks at each other then, and it's kind of irrelevant," Geraint Thomas told Cyclingnews. "He could win by five minutes or a minute; our group didn't seem to be bothered. It was about racing each other."
Blowing past breakaway riders Nairo Quintana and Georg Steinhauser on the way to victory, this dominant display – almost three minutes up on Thomas and Dani Martínez – made a likely Giro win surefire. Pogačar was hardly ever on the back foot for the whole three weeks.
This stood out among his six stage wins at that Giro, with one caveat. No Roglič, Evenepoel or Vingegaard on the start sheet meant he didn't have the very best dance partners to tango with.
6. 2024 Il Lombardia
I'm not sure which is a more predictable trope: Pogačar calling every season "perfect" or closing his yearly account with success in the October Monument.
Last year's Il Lombardia illustrated the gulf in class between the sport's Goliath and the rest. Mamma mia: within 1,500 metres of his attack on the Colma di Sormano, 48km from the finish, he had taken 30 seconds on the chasers. There was no letting up, nailing the wet descent, extending his lead there and on the flat before the last climb, San Fermo della Battaglia. It was entirely expected, but no less impressive.
His foreseeable success at the 'Race of the Falling Leaves' should not be underestimated. It is also a sign of his mental and physical hardiness, able to keep going at the top, all season long.
Crossing the finish line in the rainbow jersey, 3:16 ahead of closest challenger Remco Evenepoel, gave him his largest winning margin in a Monument – indeed, the broadest in this venerable Italian race since Eddy Merckx took victory in 1971. When it comes to describing 'Pogi', superlatives are becoming as exhausted as his competitors.
5. 2024 Strade Bianche
An 81km solo break into a headwind and a long tarmac section was not the plan, as his UAE Team Emirates-XRG directeur sportif Andrej Hauptman told me for Unstoppable. When Pogačar was apparently meant to hit the after-burners with 40km left before Le Tolfe, he improvised.
"Sometimes he changes the plan," Hauptman said. "He always has this ‘feeling'. Because a lot of times we can really prepare tactics, but in the end, when you come to a certain point in the race and see the situation as a rider, you see: ‘Wow, this is the moment to go.'"
After a hailstorm and grueling pace, Pogačar observed his rivals were on their hands and knees. With the group and chase behind breaking up, he had all the time in the world to give his coach, Miha Koncilija, their traditional high-five at the foot of the Via Santa Caterina, finishing 2:44 ahead of Lidl-Trek's Toms Skujinš in Siena.
4. 2025 Tour de France, stage 12
On stage 12 of this year's Tour, there was reasonable doubt about how Pogačar would perform on the race's toughest stage up to that point after hitting the deck hard on the road to Toulouse 24 hours earlier.
That morning, the Journey hit Don't Stop Believin' was warbling out of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG bus before the start in Auch; Pogačar clearly never did.
Every year, the superstar delivers a statement ride in a Grand Tour, each one seemingly topping the previous one like a Russian doll. His showing on Hautacam was something to supersede his 2024 feat on Plateau de Beille.
Thinking I had some time before the action started, I got a drink in the press room at the foot of the final climb and nearly dropped it, watching in surprise as Jhonatan Narváez led him out as if setting up a bunch sprint, not a 14km hors catégorie climb.
Then Pogačar stamped on the pedals and was gone, delivering a solo exhibition for the hundreds of thousands of roadside fans. By the end of the day, with Vingegaard and Lipowitz finishing as his closest challengers 2:10 and 2:33 down, the Tour was essentially over after its very first high mountain stage.
Only eight other riders finished within seven minutes. It was a brutalising display which gave Pogačar the luxury of playing defence in the last week – just as well, given the knee issues he was enduring, which we would only find out about later.
3. 2023 Tour of Flanders
There was both unfinished business and harsh lessons from his 2022 debut at the Tour of Flanders. Idling on the front with Mathieu van der Poel in the final kilometre led to rivals catching up and a fourth place, which left him furious.
There was no such mistake the second time round. He was on the front foot, pushing the pace on the Kwaremont, the Koppenberg and then again on the final ascent of the Kwaremont to get rid of his final hanger-on, Van der Poel.
Beating his great rival into second in one of their numerous Monument duels only increases the value of his achievement. Not even MVDP can handle sustained 600-watt bursts time and time again.
Pogačar became only the third Tour de France winner to win the Tour of Flanders. The triumph cemented his status as a convention-breaking modern racer, who not only wants to take on every kind of race but can win them all as well.
2. 2020 Tour de France, stage 20
There aren't many moments like this in sport, let alone pro cycling. Many fans will remember where they were watching as what seemed like a borderline formality for the previously unruffled Primož Roglič turned into a Pogačar coup.
Logic dictated that the older Slovenian had the race sewn up, but Pogačar had other ideas. He started the day 57 seconds down on Primož Roglič and ended it 59 seconds up.
In my mind's eye, I sometimes even forget that this was a time trial, not a road race. Perhaps it was the road bikes used, the TV camera cut-aways and time comparisons making it feel like another Pogačar rout.
Planche des Belles Filles will likely always be synonymous with Pogačar and that incredible late summer afternoon in September 2020. At the last viable moment, he snatched Tour de France victory on debut.
This was the thunderbolt moment that changed everything, a stage win – his third in that year's race – that left even the most jaded observer open-mouthed. Pro cycling can still surprise you, and no success since has been met with the same shock by everyone from fans and journalists to the young man himself.
"I think I'm dreaming. I feel like my head is exploding," Pogačar said in the aftermath. "It's really crazy. I was happy with the second place, and now I'm here with the yellow jersey."
1. 2024 World Championships road race
Make no mistake, Pogačar was the big favourite to take the rainbow jersey in Zürich, but the manner of victory was enchanting and kept viewers transfixed for two hours.
A 101km attack? Even the sport's Slovenian subjugator surely could not do that. No wonder his rivals sat back and thought he was being hoisted by his own petard.
Compare and contrast with the World Championships road race in Kigali this year: a supreme ride, but the route was too difficult, too ideal for Pogačar to create a competitive spectacle.
The Swiss course and his audacious early move together lent jeopardy and nuance aplenty, offering chances for rivals to use their manpower. They could keep him at a minute, but were unable to reel him in.
There was a sense of Pogačar coming perilously close to unravelling on the final lap, but he held on. After being engulfed by his teammates beyond the finish, there was a run and embrace for Urška Žigart which rivalled The Notebook. This was box office from breakaway start to finish, the ultimate expression of his greatness.
As Luka Mezgec, his teammate that day, told me for Unstoppable: "You think he cannot surprise you any more but he's still got something there to show. We all do cycling, but he's just playing cycling – the only guy."
Tadej Pogačar: Unstoppable by Andy McGrath (Bloomsbury Sport) is available to buy now.
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