Pogačar Sets 43.227 km/h Tour de France Record, Claiming 5th Title by 6:26

Q: After winning five Tours younger than Merckx, what is the one milestone still separating Pogačar from cycling immortality?

The clearest remaining milestone is a sixth Tour de France title. By winning a fifth Tour at age 27, Pogačar has already matched the official record shared by Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, and he did it younger than Merckx. That puts him in the sport’s rarest company. But one more yellow jersey would leave him standing alone as the outright Tour record-holder, which is the simplest missing line in his résumé. There are other major targets that add to the argument for “cycling immortality,” but they are secondary to that. He is on 26 Tour stage wins, nine short of Mark Cavendish’s record 35, and he has risen to 70 career days in yellow, behind only Hinault’s 75 and Merckx’s 96. Those are significant historical markers, especially because Merckx’s broader greatness rests not just on Tours but on the sheer range of records he accumulated. That is why the final barrier is really twofold: numerically, it is a sixth Tour; symbolically, it is surpassing Merckx’s all-around aura. But if the question is for the one milestone that most cleanly separates Pogačar from undisputed Tour de France supremacy, it is winning No. 6.

3 articles · Updated · Cyclingnews · Jul 27

43.227 km/h made the 2026 Tour de France the fastest edition on record, with Tadej Pogačar finishing the 3,197 km race in 73:56:26 on the Champs-Elysees.
That average topped the previous record of 42.728 km/h set in 2025 and marked the first Tour run above 43 km/h, far faster than Pogačar's 39.868 km/h winning pace in 2020.
Pogačar's overall margin over Remco Evenepoel stretched to 6:26, his biggest winning gap in the race, even though he missed becoming the first yellow-jersey winner in Paris since 1982.
Five overall victories put the Slovenian alongside Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain, while making him the youngest rider to reach that mark.
Stage 11 also set a record at 50.9 km/h, underscoring a faster Tour overall as Pogačar's five stage wins lifted his career total to 26, nine short of Mark Cavendish's 35.