Do we like them?

Do we like Tadej Pogačar?

Our score: 7 out of 10. Decent record and a working charity, but we found little on where he stands on the big social issues, and his team's owners draw criticism.

Pogačar is the Slovenian from the small town of Komenda who has turned the Tour de France into his personal backyard. In July 2026 he won it for the fifth time, which puts him among the great names of the race. He is the biggest name in cycling right now, and it isn't close.

On the harm test, the honest answer is that there's not much to find. We searched for anything he has said or done about LGBTQ+ people, women, migrants, vaccines or the climate and came up with no campaigning, no culture-war posts and no grievance streak. That's a clean sheet, but it's also a quiet one: he mostly talks bikes, so we can't tell you where he stands on the big issues.

The company he keeps is the one wrinkle. He rides for UAE Team Emirates-XRG, and human rights groups have criticised the UAE over its alleged involvement in Sudan's civil war and called for the team to be suspended. That is criticism of the team's backers, not anything Pogačar has said or done, so it doesn't count against him here. Some fans will still feel uneasy about it.

His rough patch this year was minor. After winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège in April he was fined 5,000 Swiss francs over how publicity was placed on his world champion's jersey on the podium. Other outlets reported the penalty was withdrawn within hours. It's a paperwork fine, not a character flaw.

The good stuff is real. He set up the Tadej Pogačar Foundation, which has run fundraising projects such as a Tour of Flanders keychain collection to help people in need. Wearing a charity on top of a rainbow jersey is rarer than it should be in a sport this money-soaked.

So would we back him? Yes. He's a dominant athlete with no harmful record we could find and a foundation that puts money into helping people. The caveat is that we're going on a thin record rather than a loud one.