Lance Armstrong has predicted that Tadej Pogačar will keep riding the Tour de France beyond a fifth victory, with the Texan implying that he will regard seven wins as the real target.
Speaking on The Move after stage nine, Armstrong dismissed the idea that Pogačar might one day skip a Tour. The suggestion came up during a discussion about whether Isaac del Toro should stay at UAE Team Emirates-XRG, with co-host Bradley Wiggins floating a scenario in which Pogačar hands the Tour to his young team-mate and targets another Grand Tour win elsewhere instead.
"You're absolutely wrong. You are 100 per cent wrong about that," Armstrong said. "He's going to win his fifth Tour, right? And we're going to listen, us included, at the finish that Tadej Pogačar equalled the all-time record for Tour wins, that he joined this elite club of five. Well, guess what? He doesn't believe that. He doesn't believe that at all. He knows what the record is, so he's not going to sit out a year."
Pogačar was 27 and had won four Tours at the time of the discussion. Victory in the 2026 edition would place him alongside Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain on five overall titles.
Why five and seven matter
Five victories remain the highest officially recognised total in Tour history. Armstrong won seven consecutive editions from 1999 to 2005, but those results were stripped and no winners were reassigned for those races. He admitted in 2013 that he had used performance-enhancing drugs during each of his Tour-winning years.
Seven therefore remains a figure associated with Armstrong's career rather than an official record. His argument is that Pogačar will still treat that number as the benchmark when deciding how long to keep returning.
"And by the way, I hope he does that," Armstrong said. "It doesn't matter, I'm an athlete. Athletes play the game, maybe they break a record, maybe they set a record. Those are all meant to be broken. Pogačar knows what the record is, so he ain't sitting one out."
Armstrong also made clear he regards this year's race as settled with nine stages ridden. "I hate to get way ahead of ourselves, but we know he's going to win this Tour," he said.
The prediction narrows Armstrong's earlier speculation about Pogačar's career to the Tour. After Pogačar's third Tour of Flanders victory in 2026, Armstrong called him "the greatest of all time, by far" and said he could retire by the end of 2028 if he ran out of major targets.
His latest comments suggest a firmer view of Pogačar's Tour ambitions. Armstrong believes the seven-win figure gives Pogačar a reason to keep returning. Pogačar has not confirmed that target or set out his long-term Tour schedule.
Cover image credit: Thomas Maheux
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