Remco Evenepoel, Tadej Pogacar, Mathieu van der Poel... Who has the best palmares in the modern peloton?
Cycling
Remco Evenepoel is coming off the back of making history at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, becoming the first man ever to win gold in both the time trial and the road race. On the other hand, Tadej Pogacar is having probably the best individual seasons in recent memory, winning the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France with six stage wins in each of the two Grand Tours, the Volta a Catalunya with four more stages and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
Analysing the performances of Evenepoel, Pogacar and Mathieu van der Poel to see who's palmares is leading the way, our colleagues at Ciclismoaldia dived in. In terms of quantity, it is clear that the Slovenian has a better track record, but in terms of quality a discussion can be opened. Remco is only 24 years old and he is already world champion in time trial and online, and also an Olympian in both disciplines. In addition, he has a Vuelta a España (2022) and a podium in the Tour de France 2024. To that we can add eight stage victories in grand tours and two monuments, the Liège-Bastogne-Liège won in 2022 and 2023. Finally, he also has three wins in the Clásica de San Sebastián, which is a record in the Basque race, shared with Marino Lejarreta.
Pogacar is no slouch. Just as internationally, when competing for his country, Evenepoel has better results than him, when it comes to the classic calendar of the season racing each with his team, Tadej has no rival. He already has four victories in grand tours (3 times the Tour de France and 1 Giro d'Italia), six in monuments (3 Il Lombardia, 2 Liège-Bastogne-Liège and 1 Tour of Flanders), 26 stages in three-week races (17 in the Tour, 6 in the Giro and 3 in the Vuelta), he has always finished on the podium of the seven grand tours in which he has participated. Finally, we can mention his 2 Strade Bianche, 1 Amstel Gold Race, 1 Flèche Wallonne, 2 Tirreno Adriatico or 1 Paris-Nice.
When we talk about the best palmares in cycling today, we also have to mention Mathieu van der Poel. Unlike the first two, the Dutchman is not in the general classification. However, he is a beast in the classics. He also has six monuments (1 Milan-San Remo, 2 Paris-Roubaix and 3 Tour of Flanders, a record shared with Achiel Buysse, Fiorenzo Magni, Eric Leman, Johan Museeuw, Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara, although he has several years to hold it alone). Like Remco, he's also a world road champion on the road. And to add to his palmares, he's already one of the greatest ever in cyclocross, if not the GOAT. He has six world championships and is one behind the top rainbow jersey winner in the discipline, Belgian Eric De Vlaeminck.
In terms of complete riders, these are the three with the best track records in cycling today. But we can also mention other cyclists. Jonas Vingegaard has won the Tour de France twice, has four podiums and as many stage wins. In important one-week races he has 1 Itzulia del País Vasco, 1 Critérium du Dauphiné and 1 Tirreno Adriatico. In the Vuelta a España, he was second in 2023 with two personal victories.
Another name could be Wout van Aert. He has tended to have bad luck during his career due to various circumstances and has numerous second places in important races but still has a first class career. He has 9 stage wins in the Tour de France, 2 E3 Saxo Classic, 1 Ghent-Wevelgem, 1 Amstel Gold Race, 1 Strade Bianche and 1 monument like Milan-San Remo. In addition, as MVDP he is a specialist in cyclo-cross, being three times world champion and beating the Dutchman on more than one occasion.
Primoz Roglic is no longer in the prime of his career but he has a fantastic history, especially in the Vuelta a España, where he has won the final general classification three times, second most tied with Alberto Contador and Tony Rominger, one behind Roberto Heras who has four. He has 12 stage victories, 17 in total in grand tours, has also won the Giro d'Italia 2023 and is the active rider with the most important one-week races. 2 Tirreno Adriatico, 2 Itzulia, 2 Criterium du Dauphiné, 2 Tour de Romandie and 1 Paris-Nice are in his list of victories. To top it off, we can include a Liège-Bastogne-Liège and the gold medal in time trial at the Tokyo 2021 Olympic Games.
With the 'Big 6' completed, one last mention must also be made for Chris Froome, who, although he is no longer ready for world-class results, is still active. The Briton is still the cyclist still present in the peloton with the most Grand Tours (7), and the most Tour de France (4, with 7 stage wins). He also has 2 Vuelta a España, with 5 wins, and 1 Giro d'Italia, with 2 more, completing a total of 14 in the three major races of world cycling. Finally, he has 3 Criterium du Dauphiné and 2 Tour de Romandie.
Kieran WoodDeputy Editor-in-Chief
Kieran Wood is a sports journalist based in Wales and has been active in journalism since 2022. He regularly contributes to DartsNews.com and CyclingUpToDate.com, where he covers professional cycling and darts. In cycling, his work includes liveblogs from major races, including the Tour de France, the Giro d’Italia, and La Vuelta a España, alongside race reports and analysis. He has also conducted interviews with professional riders.
His reporting spans the full racing calendar, from one-day classics to stage races, with a focus on accurate, real-time coverage and clear contextual analysis. For statistics, results, and historical context, he regularly uses resources such as ProCyclingStats. To support reporting on rider activity and training context where relevant, he also references Strava.
In his work, Kieran places strong emphasis on careful sourcing, editorial accuracy, and updating articles as new, verified information becomes available.
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- You can clearly see the the posture change from slightly sitting to again out of the saddle while changing of gears in the video of the sprintabstractengineer08-11-2026
- He has already beaten Pogi twice in the TDF. the achievement is over. He cannot beat Pogi now and he only has a few years left at the top. Win Giro and compete in the TDF, maximise palmares.abstractengineer08-11-2026
- Just looked again at the photo. Yeah I stand by that. If MS had fallen over in Brands direction I don’t even think she would have hit her. You must be a UCI race commissioner. I’ll be sure to check my sock height should I ever see you on a ride. Looks like everyone else on here sees what I see.mij08-11-2026
- I said looking at the photo it doesn’t appear she deviated. Chill out, not stating my word is the final judgement. Just commenting that based on the photo I don’t see it. And BTW the Dutch coach even said she didn’t impede her.mij08-11-2026
- Blah Blah Blah !frieders308-11-2026
- MS said she was changing gears so that caused her slight deviation. Nothing was intentional.frieders308-11-2026
- How can you use a photo post incident to judge the incident itself (which is not hard to find if you’re prepared to invest the same amount of time in searching as writing that comment? It’s harsh but technically right even though this or worse is not always sanctioned in every race. The two things that went against MS (who unfortunately for her would still have won without making her mistake) are that it was not a bunch sprint where there could have been an overlooked incident or mitigating circumstances explaining a deviation. Everything was focused on just those 2, Schreiber was riding beautifully balanced which made her sudden deviation look unnatural stroke as if it could have been in some part intentional whilst she was slowly drifting ever closer towards the barrier to a point that would have reached obstruction level. In her defence, it might have been the realisation she was heading towards that that made her react suddenly and caused the deviation involuntarily. In any case, congratulations to her for the ride of her life, in people’s minds she will be credited for it.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- Good boy Obviously doesn’t need that much help dealing with pressure, as some have suggested. Wiser (and humbler) than many far further along their careers. About offering him the moon, recently someone came up with an explanation of the downfall of a football great (either referring to Maradona or Portuguese Ronaldo) saying it was kind of normal after coming back from the moon, except that others, including some who actually did go to the moon like Armstrong (Neil in case anyone is too switched off to realise) didn’t go through any of the same motions after coming back. A lot of how you deal with situations has less to do with the situation than with your character.Jumpyjohn07-11-2026
- I think that they're not really used to dealing with this type of incident in a cyclocross race, and the situation has been magnified because it was a race for a championship title. It's very unfortunate that the race had to be decided in this way.
santiagobenites07-11-2026 - Seriously why do they keep doing stupid things like this. Its one thing to relegate when the placings are minor, when the action is blatant. But when it is ambiguous, why dont they at least take advice from some higher up to avoid embarrassing themselves. This is similar to the Halland goal when his teammate was clearly offside and interfered in play and VAR gave them the goal. if you dont have evidence you cannot convict. Even for doping they have these rulesabstractengineer07-11-2026
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BELGIUM, WE DID IT!!! Double Olympic Champion.🥇🥇 No words... I hope this inspires anyone to chase their dreams. 💭❤️ What an incredible race from the entire team and I'm so proud that I could finish it off.🇧🇪🚀
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