Has Pogacar ended the Tour de France as a contest? - Analysis

In good days and bad, Primož Roglič has always done a neat line in pithy observations. It was no different after stage 12 of the Tour de France, where his compatriot Tadej Pogačar conjured up his latest miracle on the slopes of Hautacam.

Beyond the finish line, somebody asked Roglič for his impressions of the pace when Pogačar sprung onto the offensive at the bottom of the climb. “It was just fast, eh. I mean, way too fast for me,” Roglič said. As simple and as complicated as that.

This is the same Roglič who has won a Grand Tour in each of the past two seasons, the same Roglič who could – should? – have beaten Pogačar to his maiden Tour in 2020. Yet here, he was removed to a mere also-ran, labouring up the mountain some four minutes behind his fellow Slovenian.

He wasn’t the only one. That hefty deficit was still enough for Roglič to finish inside the top 10 on a day where nobody escaped unscathed. The entire Tour peloton ended up scorched by Pogačar’s umpteenth display of shock and awe. 

Like last year, Jonas Vingegaard (Visma | Lease a Bike) was the best of the rest. But unlike in 2024, he was far closer to the rest than he was to the best. The Dane attempted to follow Pogačar’s violent, seated acceleration with 12km to go, but he sensibly checked out within a few pedal strokes, immediately realising that he didn’t have the credit line to go all-in with his rival.

For a couple of kilometres, Vingegaard succeeded in keeping the gap at a dozen seconds or so, and one briefly wondered if his powers of endurance would see him recoup the ground on Pogačar as the climb drew on. At Valmeinier 2000 at the Dauphiné, after all, Vingegaard had stalked Pogačar all the way and limited the damage by the summit.

There would be no reprise of that performance here. Instead, Pogačar continued at his thermonuclear pace, and Vingegaard’s defence systems eventually broke down. With 10km to go, the gap was 17 seconds. With 9km remaining, it was half a minute. 7km from home, it was 50 seconds. 5km from the top, it was 1:08.

The stage was already won, but Pogačar wasn’t done hammering home the lesson. It was hard not to think of the approaches of Chris Froome and Lance Armstrong to the first summit finish of the Tour. Like them, Pogačar’s intention wasn’t simply to take back yellow, it was to put the very idea of winning the Tour beyond the wildest dreams of his rivals.

In the final 5km, he would add another minute to his advantage over Vingegaard, coming home 2:08 clear. A rout. It was the biggest winning margin he has ever inflicted on Vingegaard when they have placed first and second in a mountain stage at the Tour.

Even on Pogačar’s most startling exhibition in 2024, at Plateau de Beille, the gap was ‘only’ 1:08, and Vingegaard had an even bigger buffer on third-placed Remco Evenepoel.

At Hautacam, by contrast, Pogačar was in a tier entirely of his own, while Vingegaard risked getting sucked into the contest with the stragglers behind. He came home just 13 seconds ahead of Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) and 50 clear of Oscar Onley (Picnic-PostNL) and Tobias Halland Johannesen (Uno-X Mobility). Those three youngsters performed admirably here, but, with all due respect, theirs was not the company Vingegaard expected to be keeping at this Tour. 

The arid truth of the race’s first mountain stage, however, is that Pogačar is simply in a race of his own. At times, when the television footage flitted between Pogačar’s seemingly effortless pedalling out in front and the more laboured styles of the men chasing him, it felt as if somebody was flicking the television between channels showing entirely different sports.

Such is the brutal reality of racing against the 2024-25 iteration of Pogačar.

As a collective, Visma | Lease a Bike have tried to discommode Pogačar ever since the race left Lille. They split the peloton in the crosswinds on the opening day, and they have raced on the front foot wherever possible. They even irritated Pogačar by riding to try to keep him in yellow at Vire on stage 6.

The idea, it seemed, was to wage a war of attrition, hoping to wear down their rival and his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad ahead of an onslaught when the race hit the high mountains. That general approach paid dividends, after all, in 2022, when they cracked Pogačar on the Col du Granon and again at Hautacam, and something along those rough lines worked again in 2023. 

Visma have raced this Tour as though they were still facing the Pogačar of 2023, and it’s hard to condemn them for it. Vingegaard’s strengths haven’t changed, after all. The problem, however, is that they appear to be competing against a radically changed opponent.

It seems that Pogačar retooled after the 2023 campaign. He was already the best cyclist in the world and vying for the title of the greatest of all time. Yet somehow, he emerged from his chrysalis in the summer of 2024 as a very different kind of foe from the one Visma had faced in years past. High altitude, heat and the third week were no longer a problem. In 2025, meanwhile, he has added an unnerving, seated acceleration to his armoury.

Still, on stage 12, Visma endeavoured to do what Visma do, and they set a fierce pace in the yellow jersey group on the Col du Soulor. The aim was to draw the sting out of Pogačar before the final climb and to test his recovery from his late crash on stage 11 in Toulouse.

Instead, it proved counterproductive. Matteo Jorgenson – a man with eyes on the podium beforehand – was already distanced before Hautacam, while Sepp Kuss and Simon Yates also put themselves into difficulty.

Pogačar, by contrast, still had Adam Yates and Jhonatan Narváez for company, while Tim Wellens dropped back from the break to put in a searing turn of pace-making into the foot of Hautacam.

It was hard not to think of Alpe d’Huez in 2001, when Armstrong – later stripped of his seven Tours for doping – allowed Telekom to believe he was on the ropes all day, only to burn Jan Ullrich off his wheel at the base of the final climb.

Armstrong famously looked back into Ullrich’s eyes before his decisive attack. Pogačar, by contrast, didn’t need any visuals on what was happening behind him. He already knew he would be alone all the way to the top.

In the overall standings, Pogačar is already 3:31 ahead of Vingegaard, 4:45 ahead of Remco Evenepoel, the only other man within five minutes of the lead. On the evidence thus far, Friday’s mountain time trial to Peyragudes will only see those margins grow further.