Tadej Pogacar's first at the 2025 Tour de France is his hundredth

The Rampe Saint-Hilaire is a mean street in the middle of Rouen. At least it is sincere: it candidly admits its nature as a ramp, and is exclusionary in the manner of Saint Hilary against all heresy. The Rampe Saint-Hilaire was also exclusionary, as it should have been with its 900 meters at an average gradient of 10.6 percent. Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard were left alone , with their opponents who pedal stroke after pedal stroke dwindled behind them. Tadej Pogacar in front, making a pace impossible for most, Jonas Vingegaard behind him, attached to his wheel. He lost it only for a few moments, he turned when he shouldn't have to check on the efforts of others, he missed a pedal stroke that cost him a few meters, he promptly got back in the slipstream of the world champion. They arrived at the top alone, both out of breath and with burning legs. Neither felt like continuing. And yes, it would have been worth it, but the Tour de France has just started and there will be plenty of opportunities to take the path of cycling solitude.

Perhaps it would have been heretical to try to reach the finish line alone, because up until the entrance to Rampe Saint-Hilaire, the fourth stage of the 2025 Tour de France had been a team race. The group divided into blocks of equal jerseys for hundreds of kilometers; the pace imposed by Visma | Lease a bike capable of stretching the group on the penultimate climb of the day, the Côte de Grand'Mare, and breaking it into a thousand subgroups on the descent – ​​they had promised to attack, they are keeping their word –; the acceleration of UAE Team Emirates at the start of the last climb, first with Jhonatan Narváez, then with Pavel Sivakov, finally with João Almeida. A perfect collective movement. The road cleared for the captains right there where the asphalt became malignant.

Could Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard ruin all this collective racing? Of course, they did. But they didn't feel like insisting. And so, among the few, João Almeida and Matteo Jorgenson, who are shadows of the Slovenian and the Dane, returned. They began the symbiotic racing again, at least until the moment of no return. Until the finishing straight, where teammates are of no use. Where Tadej Pogacar stood up on the pedals to avoid seeing Mathieu van der Poel rejoice again.

The Dutchman tried to get ahead of his rivals in the way he prefers, as he had done in Boulogne-sur-mer at the end of the second stage . However, this time the Slovenian did not lose that extra meter, first he joined him and then overtook him. Tadej Pogacar won the fourth stage of the 2025 Tour de France with his arms raised, his hundredth career victory. The fact that he reached the third digit in the city where Jacques Anquetil was born is a coincidence, but not too much. Because perhaps the Slovenian lacks the elegance of the Frenchman on a bicycle – everyone lacks the elegance of the Frenchman on a bicycle –, but they are riders made of the same stuff, that of champions.

Mathieu van der Poel, second at the finish, remains in the yellow jersey. Tadej Pogacar will have to settle for wearing the polka dot jersey again, the one that his teammate Tim Wellens had snatched from him yesterday to save him the time lost at the awards ceremony: that is not the jersey that the Slovenian dreams of wearing.

That polka dot jersey that is turning fifty years old would be more than happy to be worn by Lenny Martinez. The French rider had imagined a different Tour de France, a high-ranking Tour de France. He had to change his plans immediately. He got lost in the wind of Lille , he lingered towards Boulogne-sur-mer. And so he began to escape in search of making sense of these three weeks. The two points he earned – while he was looking for an unlikely Norman smile with Jonas Abrahamsen, Thomas Gachignard and Kasper Asgreen – are few and nothing, but they are at least a starting point.

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