Tadej Pogačar just wants to go to the beach.
Who can blame him? For the past four weeks, he’s been at the eye of the Tour de France hurricane.
After winning four stages and a fourth yellow jersey within six years, cycling’s most successful male cyclist of this era has his mind on Monday’s day off.
“Right now, I’m not thinking about any other race. I just want to go back to my team bus, to my teammates, and enjoy the evening together,” Pogačar said Sunday evening. “I don’t want to think about other races right now.”
Burnout? Mental fatigue? Signs of a lapse? Not really.
Pogacar, 26, just blew the doors off Visma-Lease a Bike and Jonas Vingegaard despite a Tour de France course that was almost like a greatest hits of his few lone hiccups in his Tour racing history.
Col de la Loze, Mont Ventoux – ASO threw everything at Pog this year, hoping that Visma and Vingegaard could crack him. It didn’t.
This Tour cracked just about everyone, except Pogačar.
Don’t worry about Tadej. He just needs a day off.
Without rival: ‘Maybe I can burn out’
With four yellow jerseys, he’s one win short of the “five-win club,” but don’t ask him about what comes next.
“It’s not a goal to win five Tours. Right now, I have no clear goals,” he said, crushing the dreams of race organizers everywhere. “Maybe the world championships this year, and Lombardia. I just want to enjoy the moment.”
Fans are chattering that this Tour de France might have been exciting every day, but the overall arc and narrative of the race were predictable and repetitive.
That’s what you get when a generationally dominant rider is on a stacked team racing at the peak of their power.
Tour de Francia (x4)
Giro de Italia
Mundial
Lombardía (x4)
Lieja (x3)
Flandes (x2)
Strade Bianche (x3)
Amstel
Flecha (x2)
Dauphiné
Tirreno (x2)
Paris Niza
UAE Tour (x3)
JJOO104 victorias como profesional #TdF2025 #TourEnCOPE pic.twitter.com/3hH3e2bRWC
— COPEdaleando (@Copedaleando) July 27, 2025
Is this Tour peak Pogacar?
He’s not even sure.
“I’m at this point in my career that if I do burn out, I can finish my career and be happy with what I achieved,” he said Sunday.
Pogačar was sounding like a rider who needs to unplug and recharge the batteries.
“Burnouts happen in sport – mental burnout, physical burnout. We do train a lot. We’re sometimes a bit too obsessed with training,” he said. “A lot of times you see some riders hit fatigue during the season, and then the team needs you to race, race, race, and in the end, you just keep going in this circle and never recover.
“Then you come to October and you’re like, ‘Finally, a break,’ and then in December you’re trying to do it all over again. So yeah, burnouts happen all the time, and it can happen to me as well.”
Is that Pogi-speak for no Vuelta?
Questioning Superman: ‘There are always doubts’
Or is it just his way of saying I need a vacation?
There was no mention of a possible Vuelta start in less than one month — officials told Velo a decision will come Wednesday — but from the sounds of it, the last thing Pogačar wants to do is race for three more weeks straight.
Pogačar is unrivaled in cycling right now. This Tour proved that.
Riders like Mathieu van der Poel or Wout van Aert — who attacked Sunday over Montmartre to win the final stage — can beat him on the day sometimes.
And Vingegaard might be the only rider in the entire peloton who you could call his peer, but Pogačar proved this year he’s without a direct rival.
How does an athlete deal with the responsibility of being on top of the world? Even he admitted he has his moments.
“There are always doubts,” he said Sunday. “When you have such strong opponents, not just Jonas, but everyone in the Tour is 100 percent, you never know what’s coming the next day.”
Only 11 riders will finish this Tour de France within one hour from the yellow jersey, something that has last happened 56 years ago.
— CafeRoubaix (@CafeRoubaix) July 27, 2025
Pogacar leaned into his support system across this Tour. It’s UAE and his teammates during the race, and his girlfriend Urska and their families after the race.
“I think it helps to have such a strong team around you, great support. Even if you have doubts, the atmosphere around you can help clear them away,” he said. “You go into the race motivated, energized, and wanting to give it your all.
“In the end, if you give it all on the road, you don’t have anything to regret. But yes, there’s always a little bit of doubt. You never know.”
Those are the words of an athlete at the absolute peak of his powers.
Does it sound like he’s wallowing in self-doubt? No.
Pogačar attacked over the Montmartre in yellow on Sunday. He’s just fine.
Almost no one’s beaten when it counted for nearly two years in a row. And that shows no signs of abating any time soon.
This is Pogacar’s cycling world right now; everyone else is just racing for leftovers.