'If he didn’t crash, he would have won by four minutes' - UAE Team Emirates-XRG astounded by latest Tadej Pogačar Tour de France masterclass

When dawn broke on the 2025 Tour de France’s first stage in the Pyrenees, there was a sense among most many that this was going to be the comeback day. Tadej Pogačar, having crashed the day before, was at risk of being overhauled by Jonas Vingegaard and, at least according to performances so far, by the better, healthier and more numerous team, Visma-Lease a Bike.

In Pogačar’s Toulouse hotel, however, there were no such thoughts. “This morning at the meeting, it was like being in school and the teacher was having to say, ‘hey guys, focus a little bit’,” Tim Wellens of UAE Team Emirates-XRG recalled. “We were laughing at other things and not really having the meeting.” Nils Politt, another one of Pogačar’s devout teammates, reported similar vibes. “Yesterday evening we saw he was OK [after the crash] so we were already in a good mood. And then today he was super confident. He said on the bus that he wanted to win today.” So much for being fearful of the Visma assault, huh.

The stage from Auch to Hautacam ended with Pogačar doing what Pogačar does: winning. Convincingly. “It’s no surprise anymore,” Politt said. “When he says he wants to go, then most of the time he goes.” He put two minutes and 10 seconds into Vingegaard on the first big mountain day, a time gap that no one foresaw. “It’s beyond our dreams,” UAE’s sports manager Matxin Fernández said. “To take more than two minutes… that was never even in our best plans.”

It was an annihilation. In other GC contests there’d be talk about the potential for off-days, and the mind would cast back to as recently as May when Simon Yates spun the Giro d’Italia on its head in the most unlikely of circumstances, but this is Tadej Pogačar. He doesn’t do collapses. “Tadej is on another level,” Wellens remarked.

The man himself concurred. He operates in his own exclusive one-man competition, reserved for him only. “Based on my feeling, I feel at the best moment of my career,” the 26-year-old world champion said. “I’m riding in the rainbow jersey, I ride with an amazing team, amazing teammates, so it’s like a fairytale for me. Now is the peak of my career, the last two, three years, and I try to hold it as long as I can.”

Pogačar ascended the 13.25km HC climb of the Hautacam in 35 minutes and eight seconds. Only Bjarne Riis in 1996 was quicker, by 30 seconds. The Slovenian smashed Vingegaard’s time on the same climb from 2022 by 1:27, and that, memories of that fateful day three years ago, is key to how he performed this time around.

“For sure, it was playing on my mind from 2022, when I lost the Tour here,” he said. That day he was even dropped by Wout van Aert. Nothing of the like three years on. “Even though I really like this climb, I lost it that day so I was really motivated today.”

He was helped too by sterling work from his teammates: first, from Nils Politt in controlling the breakaway, and then from Jhonatan Narváez who unleashed a wicked turn of speed at the foot of the Hautacam. So violent was the Ecuadorian’s move that it shredded what remained of the front bunch, and when Adam Yates returned to his team’s bus afterwards he insisted that he needed to ride Narváez’s bike to see what was inside it. The Briton then rode up and down the road, chuckling as he did so. Narváez has been an inspired signing from Ineos Grenadiers – and doesn’t Pogačar know it.

“Jhonny doesn’t take jokes, I guess, he sent it full gas,” Pogačar said. “Adam was not in the [Critérium du] Dauphiné, so he was like, ‘what is this guy doing?’, but I was like, ‘OK, I see the plan of Jhonny, I follow, I try to commit, the worst thing that happens is that I can blow and go a bit slower. But in the end Jhonny did a good move, we went full gas and then I remained alone and it was better with a kilometre solo to the finish line.”

Twenty-fours on from hitting the road in Toulouse, Pogačar reminded everyone that the Tour de France’s yellow jersey belongs to him, and no one else. Vingegaard had it for two consecutive years, but he won’t be getting it back again. The next nine stages should be a procession. “I imagine that if he didn’t crash, he would have won by four minutes,” Wellens said, tongue-in-cheek, but definitely not tongue-in-cheek. “He’s mentally super strong, focused, and always delivers.” A fourth Tour title feels inevitable now. “This is not finished,” his team’s manager Fernández cautioned. “Paris is still far.” Good luck getting people to buy into that messaging.