Cycling superstar Tadej Pogacar wins Tour de France for fifth time

VPM | By Debbie Elliott, Christopher Harland-Dunaway and Michael Levitt

Published July 26, 2026 at 8:46 PM EDT

DEBBIE ELLIOTT, HOST:

The Tour de France finished in Paris today. The least surprising news for cycling fans – the winner. Slovenian cyclist Tadej Pogacar emerged victorious. This is his fifth Tour de France win, which ties the all-time record. Pogacar’s performance is not just impressive, though. Some say it’s historic. As some commentators and former professional cyclists say, he may be the greatest of all time. To hear more about the Pogacar phenomenon at the tour this year, we reach Jason Gay, who covers sports for The Wall Street Journal. Hi there.

JASON GAY: Hi, how are you?

ELLIOTT: I’m good. So give us a little background on Pogacar. Who is he? Why has he been making such a splash in the cycling world? And really, is he the GOAT?

GAY: Well, you’re absolutely right to ask the question. He’s been on this historic tier. He has now won the Tour de France five times. But what makes him such a dominant figure in the sport is not just his performance in these long, three-week races like the Tour de France. He’s also dominating these long one-day races that take place in the spring. He really doesn’t have a weakness as a rider. Typically, you’ve had specialists in the sport. People are good at time trials. People are good at climbing. People are good at sprints. Pogacar can do it all. And I think that’s the thing that really stands out and reminds people, really, of only one cyclist in history – a Belgian named Eddy Merckx, who is widely regarded as the greatest ever.

ELLIOTT: Now, this is his fifth time to win, which ties the record. Were there any particular moments that impressed you as you watched this race?

GAY: I mean, he just has the command right away. There was a moment early in this race where he just seized control – a big time margin in a mountain stage victory – and just continued it throughout the race. There was never a moment where it looked like his dominance was in doubt. His closest competitor – a guy from Denmark named Jonas Vingegaard – actually crashed and fell out of the race. He was not in any position, though, to challenge Tadej. So it was pretty much a three-week uninterrupted run.

ELLIOTT: So the tour came this year as Europe has been experiencing this blistering heat wave. How have the riders been handling the heat?

GAY: I mean, as well as can be expected. It’s not a great situation. It’s not a great situation for the riders. It’s also not a great situation for the crowds. There’s been discussions of maybe you could move the races to early in the morning – have the start at something at, like, 8:00 in the morning and have them wrap by midday. That’s not terribly hospitable to the crowds, but it’s going to be a trade off at some point. ‘Cause you’re absolutely right – the temperatures have been soaring, and it definitely could affect performance and also just the livelihood of people who are on the course.

ELLIOTT: And didn’t they have to cut the race short because…

GAY: Yeah.

ELLIOTT: …Security crews had to be redirected to go help with the wildfires, right?

GAY: That’s right. And that’s not the first time that this happened. There have been interruptions because of wildfires elsewhere. And yes, conditions did force the abbreviation of one of the stages.

ELLIOTT: Now, what about smoke? Did the riders have to deal with any smoke?

GAY: Did the riders have to deal with any smoke? You know, that’s a good question. I mean, it’s possible that they, at some point, did encounter it. I can’t speak specifically of that one stage. But it’s always a factor, you know, when you consider the number of wildfires and the fact that most of these stages, especially late in the race, are happening in mountainous regions.

ELLIOTT: Well, thanks for the update. Jason Gay is a sports columnist for The Wall Street Journal. I appreciate you talking with us.

GAY: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

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Debbie Elliott

NPR National Correspondent Debbie Elliott can be heard telling stories from her native South. She covers the latest news and politics, and is attuned to the region's rich culture and history.

For more than two decades, Elliott has been one of NPR's top breaking news reporters. She's covered dozens of natural disasters – including hurricanes Andrew, Katrina and Harvey. She reported on the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, introducing NPR listeners to teenage boys orphaned in the disaster, struggling to survive on their own.

Elliott spent months covering the nation's worst man-made environmental disaster, the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, documenting its lingering impact on Gulf coast communities and the complex legal battles that ensued. She launched the series "The Disappearing Coast," which examines the oil spill's lasting imprint on a fragile coastline.

She was honored with a 2018 Gracie Award from the Alliance for Women in Media Foundation for crisis coverage, in part for her work covering the deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and the mass murder of worshippers at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. She was part of NPR's teams covering the mass shootings at Charleston's Emanuel AME Church and the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando.

Elliott has followed national debates over immigration, healthcare, abortion, tobacco, voting rights, welfare reform, same-sex marriage, Confederate monuments, criminal justice and policing in America. She examined the obesity epidemic in Mississippi, a shortage of public defenders in Louisiana, a rise in the incarceration of girls in Florida and chronic inhumane conditions at state prisons in Alabama and Mississippi.

A particular focus for Elliott has been exploring how Americans live through the prism of race, culture and history. Her coverage links lessons from the past to the movement for racial justice in America today.

She's looked at the legacy of landmark civil rights events, including the integration of Little Rock's Central High, the assassination of Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar Evers, the Montgomery bus boycott and the voting rights march in Selma, Alabama. She contributed a four-part series on the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee, which earned a 2019 Gracie Award for documentary.

She was present for the re-opening of civil rights era murder cases, covering trials in the 16^th Street Church bombing in Birmingham, the murder of Hattiesburg, Miss., NAACP leader Vernon Dahmer and the killings of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County, Miss.

Elliott has profiled key figures in politics and the arts, including former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, historian John Hope Franklin, Congressman John Lewis, children's book author Eric Carle, musician Trombone Shorty and former Louisiana Governor Edwin Edwards. She covered the funerals of the Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, and the King of the Blues BB King, and she took listeners along for the second line jazz procession in memory of Fats Domino in New Orleans.

Her stories give a taste of southern culture, from the Nashville hot chicken craze to the traditions of Mardi Gras to the roots of American music at Mississippi's new Grammy Museum. She's highlighted little-known treasures such as North Carolina artist Freeman Vines and his hanging tree guitars, the magical House of Dance and Feathers in New Orleans' Lower 9th ward, a remote Coon Dog Cemetery in north Alabama and the Cajun Christmas tradition of lighting bonfires on the levees of the Mississippi River.

Elliott is a former host of NPR's newsmagazine All Things Considered on the weekends, and is a former Capitol Hill Correspondent. She's an occasional guest host of NPR's news programs and is a contributor to podcasts and live programming.

Elliott was born in Atlanta, grew up in the Memphis area, and is a graduate of the University of Alabama. She lives in south Alabama with her husband, two children and a pet beagle.

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