![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/84490217007.jpg\"\/)
![\"play\"](\"https:\/\/www.gannett-cdn.com\/appservices\/universal-web\/universal\/icons\/icon-play-alt-white.svg\"){kind=icon}
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Tour de France under way on home soil for first time in five years<\/p>\n
The 2025 edition of the Tour de France cycle race begins in the city of Lille with Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard set to renew their rivalry.<\/p>\n
FMM – F24 Video Clips<\/p>\n
The Tour de France<\/a> ranks among the most popular sporting events in the world. It\u2019s also one of the most grueling. Tour cyclists burn 3,000 to 4,000 calories<\/a> per day, more than marathon runners<\/a>, and the race lasts 21 days.\u00a0<\/p>\n You have to be a world-class athlete to win the Tour once. In 1908, a Frenchman named Lucien Petit-Breton became the first man to win it twice<\/a>. Belgian Philippe Thys<\/a> won his third Tour in 1920. In 1964, Frenchman Jacques Anquetil<\/a> captured his fifth.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Five Tours is the record. It has stood for more than half a century. Three men have equaled it: Belgian Eddy Merckx<\/a> in 1974, Frenchman Bernard Hinault<\/a> in 1985 and Spaniard Miguel Indur\u00e1in<\/a> in 1995.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Lance Armstrong<\/a> shattered the record in 2004, winning his sixth and seventh Tours that year and the next. But his name was later stricken from the books.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Now, the five-Tour record is vulnerable once more. Tadej \u201cPogi\u201d Poga\u010dar<\/a>, a cyclist from Slovenia, won his fourth Tour in July.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar just won his fourth Tour. He’s 26.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar is the youngest cyclist in history to win four Tours.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, he\u2019s 26,\u201d said Peter Joffre Nye<\/a>, a cycling historian<\/a>. \u201cMeaning that he\u2019s still young.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Age matters in the Tour. Anquetil won his fifth Tour at age 30, Merckx at 29, Hinault at 30, Indur\u00e1in at 31. Briton Chris Froome<\/a>, another four-time Tour winner, claimed his last victory at 32.\u00a0<\/p>\n Tour champions tend to reach their peak in their mid-20s, and to pass it sometime around 30. That means, in theory, Poga\u010dar should have three or four more chances to win the Tour before his peak is past.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cAt age 26, he is physically in his prime,\u201d said Ron Kiefel<\/a>, an American cyclist who rode in seven Tours. \u201cTraditionally, that\u2019s between ages 26 to 32. If all goes well, he has many more years of amazing victories ahead.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, there are good reasons why so few cyclists have won five Tours.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Tour de France champions are eventually dethroned<\/p>\n One is the competition. The Tour draws the finest road cyclists in the world. Every Tour great has rivals who are nearly as good. Sometimes, the rival ultimately dethrones the champion.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Hinault, the last French Tour winner, lost an epic battle for a sixth victory to Greg LeMond<\/a>, a rising American star, who became America\u2019s first men\u2019s Tour winner in 1986.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar\u2019s greatest rival is Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> of Denmark, a cyclist so talented that he has already beaten Poga\u010dar twice. The Slovenian won in 2020 and 2021, the Dane in 2022 and 2023, the Slovenian in 2024 and 2025.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cVingegaard is only two years older,\u201d at 28, \u201cso that rivalry will play out for many years to come,\u201d Kiefel said.\u00a0<\/p>\n Even so, the Poga\u010dar who rode to victory in 2024 and 2025 looked all but invincible.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n His victory margin over Vingegaard in 2024 was more than six minutes. That\u2019s a lot: In an individual Tour stage, the leader is lucky to gain 30 seconds over his main rival.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In 2025, Poga\u010dar won four of 21 daily Tour stages. Vingegaard won none.\u00a0<\/p>\n Crashes, illness or a bad day can derail Tour victory<\/p>\n Simple misfortune, too, could halt Poga\u010dar\u2019s progress toward a fifth or sixth Tour title.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Eddy Merckx lost the 1975 Tour, which would have been his sixth victory, after a fan punched him in the kidney<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Greg LeMond missed two Tours at his peak after nearly dying in a hunting accident. After a legendary comeback<\/a>, he managed to win only two more: three in all.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Crashes are routine in professional cycling. A bad crash in 2024<\/a> may have cost Vingegaard his third Tour victory that year.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n One bad day in the mountains, where minutes can be gained or lost, has robbed many past Tour champions of a third, fourth or fifth victory.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cDuring the Tour, you\u2019ve got to be on every day for a month,\u201d said Marianne Martin<\/a>, an American who won the Tour de France F\u00e9minin in 1984. \u201cYou\u2019re not always the best. That\u2019s part of the whole sport.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The Tour de France is a team event<\/p>\n If Poga\u010dar wants to win a fifth and sixth Tour, he will also need a great team behind him. The Tour is a team event: Seven cyclists, generally, ride in support of a leader.\u00a0<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar has a great team now, the awkwardly named UAE Team Emirates-XRG.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n In the 2025 Tour, Poga\u010dar\u2019s team boasted sufficient talent and discipline to support him in the mountains, where the top contenders often need the most help. At moments when the lead group of riders dwindled to 20 or fewer, Poga\u010dar usually had teammates pedaling in front of him.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHis team is the only team that has its s\u2014t together, in terms of supporting its leader,\u201d said George Mount<\/a>, a retired rider who was the first American cyclist to successfully compete in Europe after World War II.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Two or three other cyclists at the 2025 Tour were nearly as good as Poga\u010dar, including Vingegaard and 25-year-old Remco Evenepoel<\/a> of Belgium.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Most of Poga\u010dar\u2019s rivals rode for weaker teams. Vingegaard\u2019s teammates effectively abandoned him<\/a> when he crashed on a stage of the 2025 Tour, further evidence of disarray.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n If Vingegaard stays with his team in 2026, \u201cand they get their act together, then it\u2019s a different story,\u201d Mount said. \u201cIt will be a more competitive thing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Mount gives Poga\u010dar a 50-50 chance of breaking the five-Tour record. He\u2019s already the favorite<\/a> to win in 2026. After that, who knows?\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s often said that you can\u2019t win [the Tour] in one day, but you can lose it in one day,\u201d said Nye, the cycling historian. \u201cIt could be bad food, or it could be a bad crash. Cyclists, like all professional athletes, are vulnerable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n