I published two New Leaf Journal articles in the last few days on spectacular climbing preformances at the 2025 Tour de France, with the first covering Tadej Pogačar nearly breaking Bjarne Riis’ infamous ascent record on Hautacam and the second on Pogačar (along with riders 2-4) shattering Iban Mayo’s (time trial!) ascent record on Mont Ventoux. We had the Queen Stage of the Tour earlier today, which tackled three large mountains, ending with a summit finish on Col de la Loze. But the mountain to watch was the penultimate Col de la Madeleine, which was making its 28th performance in le Tour. In 1998, it featured as one of the climbs on stage 16 where the defending Tour winner Jan Ullrich, who was nearly six minutes behind the maillot jaune, Marco Pantani, launched a savage attack on Col de la Madeleine which he pushed all the way to the finish, with only the yellow jersey able to follow. Mr. Ullrich unsurprisingly holds the ascent record on Col de la Madeleine. Could Messrs. Pogačar and Jonas Vignegaard, with the latter needing to make up nearly five minutes, threaten the record? I quote from Lanterne Rouge’s stage recap:

Vingegaard and Pogačar climbed Madeleine in 54:38 with 6.02–6.03 ᵉW/kg … Jan Ullrich’s 1998 Madeleine record was 52:44 with 6.47 ᵉW/kg. It was one of the most impressive long climbing performances and would not have been broken even if Vingegaard and Pogačar had gone full gas up the climb after Glandon, which was already taxing.

Messrs. Vingegaard and Pogačar were very fast, but they were nearly two minutes slower than the Ullrich-Pantani duo in 1998. Let this be a reminder that while Mr. Pogačar has established some new standards with his best performances in 2024 and 2025, the top climbers of the 90s were very fast. Mr. Pogačar has taught us to say never say never when it comes to the fastest climbing performances (all obvious questions aside), but Mr. Ullrich’s record on Col de la Madeleine would be imposing even if the mountain were used as a summit finish, much less as the penultimate climb on a mountainous stage.