Tour 2025: 5 Climbing Records Broken, Tadej Pogacar Remains the World's Fastest

Mont Ventoux, Peyragudes, Superbagneres, Col du Glandon and Col du Pré. These are the names of the mountains which found new owners for their climbing records after this year's Tour de France. It's half the number recorded in the historic 2024 edition when no less than ten such new benchmarks were set. This month, three of those feats were accomplished by Tadej Pogacar who won his 4th Tour de France, remaining the undisputed fastest climber in the world. While he once again launched himself at great speed on the French ramps towards the Sun, he didn't manage to reach the same cosmic level he had last year on Plateau de Beille and Isola 2000. This time he stopped somewhere in the thermosphere, keeping company to the Space Station.

The expectations were high and especially long in this Tour before the first mountain stage which came only on the 12th day of racing. Until then, Visma - Lease a Bike rode an aggressive race, trying to put Pogacar under pressure and tire him out before the third week. I think it was absolutely the right tactic and they also knew their only hope was to provoke him every day and to force him make a mistake after losing focus. The plan almost succeeded when Pogacar crashed just before the first big mountain stage but that didn't slow him down the next day or at least not enough...

Launching his thermonuclear attack from the bottom of Hautacam, Tadej was going at one point faster than Bjarne Riis in 1996 but at the top he didn't beat his infamous record of 34 minutes 38 seconds, being 30 seconds slower. This was the only Danish victory of the day because Vingegaard exploded in the last kilometers of the climb, conceding over 2 minutes to the new Yellow Jersey. The Hautacam ascent was the best performance recorded by Pogacar in this Tour while for Jonas it was a far cry from his best level, his underperformance that day basically sealing the Tour. The Slovenian increased his advantage by another 36 seconds after the mountain time trial to Peyragudes where he set a new record (17 minutes 25 seconds) and one of the best ever 15-20 minute climbing performances. The Pyrenean block ended with a revived classic mountain stage from Pau to Superbagneres, conquered by Thymen Arensman after a great, record-breaking raid at over 37 km/h average speed. The Yellow Jersey, Tadej Pogacar started from that moment to ride in catenaccio mode, just following the rear wheel of Vingegaard and cynically sprint away from him near the top. Of course this was still enough for him to set a new record on Superbagneres (42 minutes 13 seconds) but that was totally expected for a climb which made its return to Tour de France after 36 years. I don't have the exact times of Fuente (1971) and Hinault (1979) but Pogacar was approximately 2 minutes faster than them.

The "climbax" of this Tour arrived on Mont Ventoux, where despite seeming to struggle for the first time in the wheel of Vingegaard, Tadej Pogacar sprinted for the Strava KOM at the top and set a new historic climbing record of 54 minutes 30 seconds, shattering Iban Mayo's reference by 1:30. It wasn't only him who broke the 55:51 barrier but also Vingegaard and the Red Bull duo Roglic - Lipowitz while many riders recorded on the bald, windy mountain the best climbing performances of their career: Onley, Carlos Rodriguez, Gall, Vauquelin, Jegat... The stage winner Valentin Paret-Peintre and Ben Healy also climbed very fast (58 minutes 46 seconds) from the breakaway of the day, impressing the audience with their mind-blowing interval sprints up the climb. The ingredients for such a fast ascent, a truly "perfect storm" have to be mentioned: no climbs at all until the foot of Mont Ventoux and more importantly, it was a post-rest day stage. The riders were again fresh and ready for the third week.

The Alpine stages also started with a new climbing record, 10 riders succeeding to improve Alberto Contador's time on Col du Glandon: 51 minutes 10 seconds. Vingegaard tried to repeat that also on the next ascent to Col de la Madeleine but the times of Pantani and Ullrich from 1998 survived the Visma assault just like Pogacar did. This proved to be also the last attempt of Jonas to win this Tour and it was unsuccessful. An ultra-defensive Pogacar countered him before the top of Col de la Loze, arriving 2nd behind Ben O'Connor after a not that fast ascent for their standards. On the last day in the Alps, a shortened 93 km stage to La Plagne, Lenny Martinez, Valentin Paret-Peintre and Primoz Roglic made one big, last surge and set a new record on Col du Pre: 35 minutes 7 seconds. They were all swept away by UAE Team Emirates before the foot of the final climb which made its return to Le Tour after 23 years. Pogacar attacked from far out, Vingegaard was able to follow and refused to collaborate with him, preferring to spend his last day in the beautiful mountains with a front row view of Tadej's bottom. Arensman took advantage of their silly game and won another stage, climbing La Plagne slower than Miguel Indurain back in 1995 but proving that he has the potential to be the next great Dutch climber.

While overall this was the fastest ever Tour de France edition, the winner Tadej Pogacar climbed a bit slower than last year and he also rode more defensive in the mountains. Despite that, he still won the Tour de France by more than 4 minutes on Vingegaard. The bad surprise was that even with a perfect preparation, Jonas reached his best level only in the third week and had two bad days (Caen ITT and Hautacam) where he clearly underperformed, losing over 3 minutes to Pogacar. Can a major issue like this be fixed in the future? We shall find out next year... Jonas is still the only hope.