Tadej Pogacar begins the 2026 Tour de France one victory from cycling's most exclusive club — and, unusually for a rider chasing history, still in his prime.
A shot at five
The race starts Saturday, July 4, with a stage in Barcelona and runs to July 26, per race details. Pogacar arrives as defending champion with four Tour titles — in 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025 — and a fifth would tie the record shared by Eddy Merckx, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, NBC Sports notes. Each of those four was at least 29 when he won his fifth; Pogacar is 27, which would make him the youngest ever to get there.
His recent dominance is the backdrop. He won the 2025 Tour comfortably, capping a run of success across cycling's biggest races, as Yahoo Sports recounted — the kind of form that has made rivals and analysts alike treat him as the man to beat.
The challengers
He will not have it to himself. Jonas Vingegaard, the Danish rider who won the Tour in 2022 and 2023, comes in strong after a standout spring, though he is reported to be without one of his key teammates, the all-rounder Wout van Aert, because of injury — a notable loss given van Aert's ability to shape a race. Belgium's Remco Evenepoel, a former podium finisher and a specialist against the clock, looms as another threat, and a crop of younger riders is pushing up behind them.
A course that suits him
This year's route leans toward the mountains, with several summit finishes and only a short distance of individual time trialing — a profile that traditionally rewards aggressive climbers rather than time-trial specialists. That, broadly, describes Pogacar's strengths, and it is part of why he is favored so heavily.
The caveat
Three weeks of racing rarely go to script. Crashes, illness, a bad day in the mountains or a well-timed move by a rival can undo even the strongest favorite, and Pogacar himself has shown he can be beaten in one-day races. But as the peloton leaves Barcelona, the question hanging over the Tour is less whether Pogacar can win than whether anyone can stop him from making history.
