Records, best performances, child prodigies: The most fascinating figures from Le Markstein

25: Pogacar draws level with Leducq

Tadej Pogacar has secured the 25th stage victory of his Tour career. The Slovenian won solo at Le Markstein, thereby defending the stage victory he claimed in 2023 at the same location.

With this victory, Pogacar draws level with the Frenchman André Leducq and now shares fourth place with him on the all-time Tour rankings. Ahead of him are only Bernard Hinault with 28 victories, as well as the two exceptional figures Eddy Merckx (34) and record-holder Mark Cavendish (35).

9: An exclusive list of winners

With his fourth stage victory in this year’s Tour, Pogacar has achieved a feat that only eight other riders have managed before him. The Slovenian world champion is now one of just nine riders in the history of the Tour to have won four or more stages in at least three different editions.

This exclusive group includes, amongst others, Jacques Anquetil, Bernard Hinault and André Leducq. Only Eddy Merckx, who achieved this feat in five Tour appearances, and Mark Cavendish, with six such appearances, are ahead of him.

Furthermore, Pogacar is the first non-sprinter since Eddy Merckx in 1974 to have won four stages within the first 14 days of the Tour.

11: The yellow jersey makes Pogacar even stronger

The Yellow Jersey seems to be giving Pogacar an extra boost. With his victory at Le Markstein, he has already claimed his eleventh stage win of his career as the wearer of the Maillot Jaune.

This means that the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider has overtaken Tour de France legend Bernard Hinault, who won ten stages whilst wearing the yellow jersey. Eddy Merckx, however, remains the undisputed leader in this statistic. The Belgian has won a total of 25 times as the overall leader of the Tour.

2012: The first team since Sky

UAE Team Emirates-XRG dominated the Vosges stage in impressive fashion. Pogacar won, with his team-mate Isaac Del Toro finishing second. This marked the team’s second one-two finish of this Tour.

The two riders had already taken the top two places on the second stage in Barcelona, albeit in reverse order on that occasion. The last team to achieve two one-two finishes on the same tour was Sky in 2012.

At the time, Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome took first and second place in both the time trial in Besançon and the one in Chartres.

1: Seixas makes Tour history

Paul Seixas continues to make his mark in the history books. The Frenchman finished third at Le Markstein, becoming the first rider under the age of 20 since 1931 to secure a place on the podium in a Tour stage for the second time.

Even more remarkable, however, is another record: thanks to his performance, the Decathlon CMA CGM rider took the White Jersey, becoming the youngest wearer of a classification jersey in the history of the Tour de France.

Whether it was the yellow, green, mountains or white jersey: never before had such a young rider worn one of the official classification jerseys. The last similarly spectacular age record was set by the Italian Fabio Battesini, who won a Tour stage in 1931 at the age of 19.

1986: The youngest podium in four decades

The podium at Le Markstein was exceptionally young. Winner Tadej Pogacar, runner-up Isaac Del Toro and third-placed Paul Seixas had a combined average age of just 23 years and 161 days.

This made it the youngest stage podium in the Tour de France since 1986. Back then, Niki Rüttimann, Christophe Lavainne and Twan Poels stood together on the podium in Blagnac.

However, the post-war record is still held by the trio of Bernard Quennehen, Alfred Tonello and Jean Le Guilly, who, in 1953 in Nîmes, had an average age of just 23 years and three days.

50: Is Lidl-Trek on course for a team victory?

Lidl Trek is now leading the Tour de France team classification for the 50th time in its history. Following the stage to Le Markstein, the lead over UAE Team Emirates-XRG a comfortable 7 minutes and 26 seconds.

The statistics offer hope of overall victory in this classification. In both 2024 and 2025, Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE respectively took the lead in the team classification early on and held on to it right through to Paris.

In the 21st century, only Team Sky has managed to achieve an even more impressive dominance. The British team led the team classification from the first to the last day of the Tour in 2017.

5: Carapaz never gives up

Richard Carapaz remains one of the most attacking riders in this Tour. The Ecuadorian attacked early once again on the Vosges stage and spent a total of 128 kilometres on the attack.

In recognition of his efforts, the driver was EF Education-EasyPost He has been named the most combative rider of the day for the fifth time in his Tour career. Carapaz received his first award back in 2020.

Since then, he has received honours on stages 15 and 19 of the 2024 Tour, before being voted ‘Super Combatif’ for the entire race. Together with the award on stage 10 of this Tour, he now has a total of five honours, making him the most active fighter in the current peloton.

70: The UAE is decked out in yellow

Tadej Pogacar once again confidently defended his overall lead at Le Markstein and donned the Yellow Jersey for the 63rd time in his career. But it is not only the Slovenian himself who benefits from this dominance; his team does too.

For UAE Team Emirates-XRG, this was already the 70th yellow jersey in the team’s history. The first two days in yellow can be traced back to the Swiss rider Rubens Bertogliati, who took the overall lead in 2002 whilst riding for what was then known as Team Lampre-Daikin.

This was later followed by one day in yellow for the Norwegian Alexander Kristoff at the 2020 Tour, as well as four days for the Briton Adam Yates in 2023. However, Pogacar accounts for by far the largest share of this tally. With his 63 Yellow Jerseys to date, the Slovenian has taken the team to a whole new level and further cemented its position amongst the most successful teams in the modern history of the Tour.