Tour de France route designer left stunned by Tadej Pogačar’s devastating attack

When the race route was announced in October 2025, discussions at the Palais des Congrès in Paris centered on a Tour with its absolute focus on the final stretch. The final week of the race features an individual time trial, a mountain stage to Orcières, two finishes at Alpe d’Huez (one of which follows a stage with 5,500 meters of climbing), and the stage over Montmartre in Paris.

A deliberately “milder” route through the Pyrenees was chosen on paper, following the already relatively demanding opening weekend in Spain. However, Pogacar and his UAE Emirates-XRG team saw plenty of opportunities in Stage 6, in which the summit of the grueling Col du Tourmalet was a considerable distance from the finish. The Slovenian won the stage with a 2.40-minute lead over his closest rival, Jonas Vingegaard.

Thierry Gouvenou, who is responsible for the Tour’s route at A.S.O., looks back on that stage with mixed feelings. “We were a bit unsure about how tough Stage 6 would be, because we knew very well that the Tourmalet would be a decisive moment. To be honest, we hadn’t expected such a big gap and thought the differences at the finish would be much smaller,” he readily admits to Denmark’s TV2.

“In terms of suspense and excitement, you could say it was a letdown,” the Frenchman concludes in his analysis. “But that’s just how it goes in cycling. That’s Pogacar for you. He’s so strong that any route suits him.”

What could he have done, then? “The spectators wouldn’t understand if, for example, you were to ride stages in the Pyrenees with a not-too-difficult mountain pass halfway through and then nothing but flat terrain afterward. We decided to have the route climb the Tourmalet in the hope that the gap would be smaller. But the gap was huge.”

Gouvenou points out that his options are also limited. “The problem isn’t the route. The problem is the gap between Pogacar and the others. If you look at the riders behind him, Vingegaard is 30 seconds back and the others even further. That’s fine. The only problem is the gap Pogacar ultimately has over the other riders. But there’s nothing you can do about that.”

“Right now, Paris-Roubaix is the only race that Pogacar might struggle to win, so even if there were more cobblestone stages, he’d still be in the lead after four or five stages. You can’t compete with Pogacar,” Gouvenou concludes on TV2.