In January 2024, I wrote an article examining a claim that we could extrapolate from the fact that a doped Lance Armstrong dominated a largely doped Tour de France from 1999-2005 that a clean Lance Armstrong would have similarly been the best rider against clean Tour de France fields (see Cycling Doping Fallacies). In setting up the discussion, I briefly discussed some of the very fast drug-fueled Tour de Frances of the mid-to-late 1990s, prior to Mr. Armstrong’s seven-year grip on the top spot of the podium in Paris. No discussion of that interesting era in Tour history would be complete without the winner of the 1996 Tour de France, Denmark’s Bjarne Riis. Mr. Riis, who since admitted to doping, rose from being a humble domestique for the great Laurent Fignon in the late 1980s and early 1990s to a dominant Tour victory in 1996. He punctuated his athletic triumph with a stunning attack on Hautacam on stage 16 of the 1996 Tour (see full video of 1996 Tour Hautacam climb), which, through the publication of last year’s article, remained the fastest Tour de France ascent of Hautacam by a considerable margin despite the Tour having subsequently had summit finishes on the mountain in 2000, 2008, 2014, and 2022. I wrote in that article:
Mr. Riis’ stunning stage 16 rampage up Hautacam in his 96 Tour win still stands as the fastest ascent of the climb 27 years later and quite possibly the most awe-inspiring show of strength on a summit finish in Tour history.
Context Note: Every year, several stages of the Tour de France have “summit finishes,” finishing with long climbs up high mountains. Hautacam, a mountain in the French Pyrenees, is one such summit finish. The climb is 16.3 km (10.1 miles) and has an average gradient of 7.5% with several 12% sections. One note to consider as you read this article is that every Tour appearance of Hautacam comes at the end of a long stage, so the final climb is necessarily influenced to some degree by what comes before it (not to mention weather conditions and the race situation). For example, 1996 in particular was a relatively flat stage prior to the Hautacam climb, but 1994, 1996, and 2000 were the three longest Hautacam stages overall. 2000 had the most climbing leading up to Hautacam and was visited by bad weather.
See Hautacam Stage Profiles: 2000 stage 10, 2008 stage 10, 2014 stage 14, 2022 stage 18, 2025 stage 12 (note: I could not find profiles for the 1994 stage 11 and 1996 stage 16 visits)
The 2025 Tour de France is ongoing. I considered trying to watch this year but I discovered that it is streaming on NBC’s Peacock and, from what I read, the ability to use Peacock on Linux is questionable, so I ultimately decided to follow from afar (which I have done with every Tour since 2016). Stage 12 of the 2025 Tour de France visited Hautacam for a summit finish. The stage winner was Tadej Pogačar (see stage highlights), the 2024, 2021, and 2020 Tour de France winner and reigning World Champion. Pogačar was fast, very fast. He left Jonas Vingegaard, the 2022 and 2023 Tour winner and the winner on Hautacam in 2022 stage 18, two minutes and ten seconds back in second place. Mr. Pogačar is pulling away for what increasingly appears likely will be his fourth victory at the Tour de France (he has a commanding 4 minute and 13 second lead through stage 15 of 21). But how does Mr. Pogačar measure up against Hautacam history? I quote from Lanterne Rouge:
Pogačar did a good performance with 6.74 ᵉW/Kg for 35:11 min, losing 30 seconds to Bjarne Riis 1996 time when Telekom rider climbed Hautacam on a unipuerto stage in 34:41 min with 6.97 ᵉW/Kg, being the greatest performance of that era.
Being within 30 seconds of Bjarne Riis’ 1996 flattening of Hautacam is certainly a good performance. Back when I wrote my article on Mr. Armstrong last year, I would have thought that one would describe climbing that fast as stunning or perhaps alien. Mr. Pogačar’s ascent was the second-fasted climb of Hautacam at the Tour (1994, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2014, 2022, and 2025). Let us look at the top-15 fastest ascents of Hautacam, courtesy of Climbing Records (archived link):
| Rank | Tour | Rider | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1996 | Bjarne Riis | 34:38 |
| 2 | 2025 | Tadej Pogačar | 35:07 |
| 3 | 1994 | Luc Leblanc | 35:19 |
| 4 | 1994 | Miguel Indurain | 35:21 |
| 5 | 1996 | Richard Virenque | 35:27 |
| 6 | 1996 | Laurent Dufaux | 35:27 |
| 7 | 1996 | Luc Leblanc | 35:32 |
| 8 | 1996 | Leonardo Piepoli | 35:35 |
| 9 | 1994 | Marco Pantani | 35:37 |
| 10 | 1996 | Tony Rominger | 36:11 |
| 11 | 1996 | Jan Ullrich | 36:11 |
| 12 | 1996 | Pitor Ugrumov | 36:11 |
| 13 | 1994 | Richard Virenque | 36:15 |
| 14 | 1994 | Armand De Las Cuevas | 36:17 |
| 15 | 1996 | Laurent Brochard | 36:19 |
Mr. Pogačar joins, and nearly stands atop, some elite company. Careful readers will notice that Mr. Pogačar is the only Hautacam ascent in the top 15 to have not been made in the 1994 and 1996 Tour visits to the mountain. 2000, 2008, 2014, 2022, and 2025 (save for Mr. Pogačar) are nowhere to be found in the top 15! Since the other Tour visits are underrepresented, let us look at where the best times from 2000, 2008, 2014, and 2022 and the second-best time from 2025 place:
| Rank | Tour | Rider | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16 | 2000 | Lance Armstrong | 36:20 |
| 19 | 2022 | Jonas Vingregaard | 36:35 |
| 29 | 2014 | Vincenzo Nibali | 37:23 |
| 38 | 2008 | Leonardo Piepoli | 37:30 |
(Note: In the 2008 Tour, Leonardo Piepoli finished alongside his teammate Juan Jose Cobo with the same time. Mr. Piepoli took the stage win, climbing one minute and 55 seconds slower than he had 12 years earlier when he finished 5th on the Hautacam stage in the 1996 Tour.)
Before continuing, remember that context does have some effect on how the climb goes. For example, Mr. Armstrong did not win the Hautacam stage in 2000 due to the fact that the stage winner, the late Javier Otxoa, who was not in contention to win the Tour de France overall, had a large gap going into the final climb (Mr. Armstrong regained several minutes on Hautacam but Mr. Otxoa held on for the stage win). The 2000 ascent came in the rain, without which Mr. Armstrong may well have climbed at least one second faster to crack the current top-15. But in any event, Mr. Pogačar ascended Hautcam 1:13 faster than Mr. Armstrong in 2000, which could hardly be attributed entirely to weather. He was 1:28 faster than Mr. Vinegegaard’s stage win in 2022 and two minutes and thirty-two seconds faster than his own second-place finish to Mr. Vinegegaard in that Tour ascent of Hautacam in 2022. For his part, Mr. Vinegegaard climbed the Hautacam in 2025 in 37:17, meaning he was faster than the best times in 2014 and 2008.
With this context, we may again wonder why Lanterne Rouge described Mr. Pogačar’s performance, which was the second fastest ascent of Hautaam and at least 1:13 faster than every after 1996, which encompasses five separate Tours, as being merely “good.” Lanterne Rouge explained:
With Pogačar’s hard crash yesterday and the heat the conditions were not perfect and he did a relatively average performance compared to his 2024 Tour de France and 2025 Criterium du Dauphine stages.
Indeed, it is all relative. As I noted in a list of 54 things I learned in 2024, citing to Lanterne Rouge, Mr. Pogačar, produced the greatest climbing performance in the history of the Tour de France on the summit finish at stage 15 of the 2024 at Plateau de Beille, and he came close to that performance in subsequent mountain finishes in last year’s Tour. I suppose where that is the new benchmark, coming within 30 seconds of Mr. Riis’ Hautacam record performance, which Climbing Records described as “defying the laws of physics” and “one of the most brutal performances in professiona sports,” could be described as merely “good.” The Lanterne Rouge article in the Hautacam stage also notes that Mr. Pogačar had crashed hard at the end of the previous day’s stage 11. It would not be at all unreasonable to think that he may have posted an even more serious challenge to Mr. Riis’ gravity-defying Hautacam record without the previous day’s crash, although we will never know for certain.
Another note from the 2025 Lanterne Rouge report made me chuckle:
Vingegaard blew up with 6.29 ᵉW/Kg and was slower than on the 2022 Hautacam stage with a way harder stage before it.
Mr. Vingegaard was routed by Mr. Pogačar, but “blown up” is relative. His second-place finish on Mr. Pogačar’s record-shattering ascent up Plateau de Beille in the 2024 Tour was then the second greatest climbing performance in Tour history (according to the power measures used by Lanterne Rouge). His “blow up” on Hautacam was the 28th fastest ascent of the mountain in the Tour and, including Mr. Pogačar’s climb from the same stage, the fourth fastest ascent of Hautacam post-1996.
To say Mr. Vinegaard “blew up” reminds me of the 1996 ascent of Hautacam by Miguel Indurain. Going into the 1996 Tour, Mr. Indurain was the winner of five consecutive Tours from 1991-95. He already had a gap going into stage 16, and that was where his ambition for a sixth consecutive Tour came to an end. The two defining images of Hautacam in 1996 are Mr. Riis toying with a field of otherwise dominant climbers and Mr. Indurain cracking en route to losing 2:38 to Mr. Riis and finishing 11th on the stage. Of course, while Mr. Indurain did appear to be struggling on Hautacam in 1996, especially compared to when he nearly won the stage in 1994 with what remains now the fourth fastest ascent, Mr. Indurain’s labored 1996 effort on Hautacam is still the 24th fastest ascent in seven Tour visits to the climb and would have been the 2nd, 1st, 1st, 2nd, and 2nd fastest climb in 2000, 2008, 2014, 2022, and 2025 respectively. That is, to say he struggled requires considering the context of the 1996 race.
