Tadej Pogačar sealed his fifth Tour de France title in Paris, drawing level with cycling legends Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain as joint-most successful rider in the race's history. The victory, achieved despite illness affecting much of his UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad in the race's second half, cements the 27-year-old Slovenian's reputation as arguably the sport's greatest ever, given his versatility across time trials, cobbles, mountains and even sprints. The occasion was further enlivened by Mathieu van der Poel's dramatic final-stage win and a crowd of 180,000 spectators on Montmartre, underlining cycling's growing popularity even as the sport continues to grapple with its doping-tainted past.

That history resurfaced when the International Testing Agency conducted unusual night-time anti-doping tests during the race, described as an "exceptional operation", with Pogačar woken at 5am and Jonas Vingegaard at 2am the night before his Tour-ending crash. The ITA declined to specify what it was targeting, though such testing is thought aimed at detecting micro-dosing of substances like EPO or steroids that might otherwise evade the Athlete Biological Passport system endorsed by the World Anti-Doping Agency. Lance Armstrong, stripped of seven Tour titles for systematic doping, acknowledged Pogačar's achievement on social media, a reminder of the shadow still cast over the race despite no suggestion of wrongdoing by current riders.