Is ‘superstar’ Tadej Pogacar’s Tour de France domination boring?

ORCIERES-MERLETTE – With Slovenian Tadej Pogacar on the brink of a record-equalling fifth Tour de France title aged only 27, many people are saying his domination has made cycling boring.

Three-time road cycling world champion Peter Sagan said as much earlier in 2026, coming from a man who won a record seven Green Jerseys at the Tour.

The same accusations were laid against Spaniard Miguel Indurain when he won the Grande Boucle five times in a row from 1991 to 1995, and Briton Chris Froome when he won four out of five between 2013 and 2017.

Indurain was 27 while Froome was 28 when they won their first titles.

In cycling terms, Pogacar should only now be starting to reach his peak years, meaning he could go on to win several more Tours.

“Winning is nice. I will never deny it’s a nice feeling to cross the line first,” he said on July 22.

One of his chief rivals, Remco Evenepoel, said being beaten by Pogacar is anything but boring.

“I see it as being super impressive, the performances that he’s putting out,” said the 26-year-old Belgian, who sat second in the Tour’s overall standings after the 18th stage on July 23.

“I’m looking up to that, I try to learn from that and I try to reach that level as well.

“He’s a superstar, he’s the best rider ever, so I don’t think people should consider it as boring. I understand if you watch television and he goes whenever he wants, it’s boring.

“But for us, it’s a challenge and it’s a big honour to race against a champion like that.”

Evenepoel has provided some excitement at the Tour in 2026, beating Pogacar into second in back-to-back stages – a mountain-top finish in Stage 15 and a time-trial victory in Stage 16.

But he has also been left in the Slovenian’s wake when the reigning champion won three stages with uphill finishes.

“It’s exciting to see it from very close by,” added Evenepoel.

“You should not forget, we are witnessing history.”

Irish journalist David Walsh started covering cycling in the 1980s and has seen the periods of dominance by Indurain and Froome, as well as the drug-tainted years of Lance Armstrong and his US Postal Service outfit.

He wrote three books about Armstrong’s doping and was one of the chief voices exposing the sordid practices in that dark period of cycling history.

Some people have questioned how Pogacar can be so dominant without taking illegal substances, but Walsh has no doubts about the two-time road cycling world champion.

“There were Tours where other riders were just as dominant,” Walsh told AFP.

“Laurent Fignon, for example, in 1984 was really dominant. In a much less exciting way, Miguel Indurain was dominant in the early 90s. That left me a little bit cold. This one doesn’t.

“Pogacar makes domination exciting.”

Walsh compared him to tennis players like Pete Sampras and Roger Federer, but said that whereas those two were not dominant on every surface, “Pogacar rides in all the races that shouldn’t suit him” and usually wins there too.

“He’s a generational talent and my argument would always be, enjoy him because we shall almost certainly not see his like again,” he said.

British magazine Cycling Weekly argued it was the strength of Pogacar’s UAE Team Emirates-XRG outfit which has made races dull, rather than his swashbuckling long-range attacks and almost superhuman uphill acceleration.

French journalist Alexandre Roos, who works for L’Equipe, said people have to accept a certain amount of boredom in professional cycling.

But he added that what might seem boring in the present can often age like fine wine, pointing to Eddy Merckx’s Stage 17 victory at the 1969 Tour.

“The stage to Mourenx was boring,” said Roos.

“But almost 60 years later, we still talk about that stage to Mourenx as a legendary Tour stage.” AFP