Tadej Pogačar shares Tour of Flanders destruction on Strava... and doesn't get flagged this year

Tadej Pogačar is living the dream. World champion, triple Tour de France winner, generational talent — but it's nice to know that even when you're in the conversation for the greatest cyclist of all time you still rush online after a big ride to get those stats on Strava...

The Slovenian star is uploading fewer activities to the ride-sharing platform these days, a pattern we've seen other top rides such as Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock follow in recent times too, but Pogačar still seemingly can't help but log on after those big days out for a bit of Strava action.

Clearly the immortality of a second Ronde van Vlaanderen, won in the rainbow bands and extending his extraordinary 13-month spell of dominance that doesn't look anywhere near finished yet, is all that matters to Pogačar, UAE Team Emirates and his sponsors... but we know he enjoys nabbing a few KOMs too. Fortunately this year's ride hasn't been flagged, unlike in 2023.

Tadej Pogacar uploads Tour of Flanders win to Strava... gets flagged (credit: Zac Williams/SWpix.com/Strava)

The days of riders uploading their big wins to Strava with power data included are long gone, an understandable veil of secrecy applied almost across the board and certainly among the favourites, who would rather not give their rivals too many clues about their form or what power it might take to get rid of them on a climb.

Van der Poel's Strade Bianche success of a few years ago, including the soon-to-be-famous 1,000-watt attack, is one of the last major race wins we can remember being uploaded with full power data, so it's no surprise there's none of that available for yesterday.

Pogačar swept up the Strava KOMs en route to his stunning success, often beating the times he'd set himself two years ago. Once the action kicked off he set new fastest Strava times on the official 1.48km segment up the Oude Kwaremont, Koppenberg, 10km run from the bottom of the Taaienberg to the top of the Hotond, Oude Kruisberg. Oh, and the segment which covers the final 38km of the race's modern layout, that particular segment covered at 44km/h and half a minute quicker than anyone else has managed.

Tadej Pogačar Tour of Flanders 2025 (credit: Strava)

His second ascent of the Kwaremont was the quickest and earned him the new KOM with a time of 2:49. Credit to Wout van Aert and Matteo Jorgenson who, by managing to follow his rampage, also got that time, the trio now sitting level atop the famous cobbled climb's leaderboard. Jorgenson paid for his efforts, eventually dropping out of a group with teammate Tiesj Benoot and Stefan Küng on the flat run to Oudenaarde, the American rider still in good spirits when uploading his own ride to Strava later that evening.

Matteo Jorgenson 2025 Tour of Flanders activity (credit: Strava)

Pogačar also claimed the Koppenberg crown, the fearsome cobbles one of the many spots he laid down the hurt on the rest of the lead group. His time up there was 1:38, a second quicker than Belgian pro Lance Decabooter who went on a KOM-hunting mission two years ago but would have received the dreaded 'Uh oh!' email last night. It means that after five hours of racing Pogačar smashed up the iconic double-digit slopes at more than 20km/h. You'd imagine had Van der Poel returned to Strava then some of his fastest times would have been improved upon yesterday too, but the Dutchman appears to have ditched the app in recent seasons.

His maximum speed for the day was 91km/h and Strava estimates Pogačar burned 7,000 calories, the tech company no doubt very relieved to avoid the embarrassment of his Flanders-winning ride being flagged, as it was two years ago.

On to Roubaix this weekend, Pogačar having done a Hell of the North recon ride last week which saw him rack up many of the race's iconic cobbled sections' KOMs too. 

Tadej Pogačar Paris-Roubaix recon (credit: Instagram/Strava)