Tour de France record has stood for 61 years. It may soon fall.

August 11, 2025

The Tour de France ranks among the most popular sporting events in the world. It’s also one of the most grueling. Tour cyclists burn 3,000 to 4,000 calories per day, more than marathon runners, and the race lasts 21 days.

You have to be a world-class athlete to win the Tour once. In 1908, a Frenchman named Lucien Petit-Breton became the first man to win it twice. Belgian Philippe Thys won his third Tour in 1920. In 1964, Frenchman Jacques Anquetil captured his fifth.

Five Tours is the record. It has stood for more than half a century. Three men have equaled it: Belgian Eddy Merckx in 1974, Frenchman Bernard Hinault in 1985 and Spaniard Miguel Induráin in 1995.

Lance Armstrong shattered the record in 2004, winning his sixth and seventh Tours that year and the next. But his name was later stricken from the books.

Now, the five-Tour record is vulnerable once more. Tadej “Pogi” Pogačar, a cyclist from Slovenia, won his fourth Tour in July.  USA Today