“Now we're there” - viewers were saying when the breakaway riders emerged from the avalanche barrier that precedes the tourist resort of La Mongie. And right in the middle of the climb to Tourmalet, a contrast was recreated: the osmosis that surrounds the public and riders on one side and the solitude of the Champion in yet another solo performance on the other. A perfect execution, to echo what Pier Bergonzi wrote in Gazzetta dello Sport: “The Mozart of cycling rides alone at the front. Salieri chases as best he can and a chorus of riders tries to stay afloat behind the dueling leaders. It's the summary of the first mountain stage of this Tour de France, indeed of the last editions of the yellow race. Anyone who thought (hoped?) that Tadej Pogacar wouldn't kill the Tour in its cradle in the Pyrenees doesn't know him well enough”.

In today's newspapers, the space given to Pogacar's feat is proportional to the greatness of a pedal emperor accustomed to etching the locations of his overwhelming victories on his personal stele. When the pink newspaper splashes the headline “A man alone at the front” it says it all. Marco Bonarrigo, for the Corriere della Sera, loves the wealth of details: we discover in his piece that Pogacar placed his cooling mattress on the bed of a room costing 96 euros a night, a three-star hotel, at least something simple in the world of the Slovenian.

Cosimo Cito starts with numbers on Repubblica but quickly gets to the point, explaining how the new record for climbing Tourmalet (43'12”) is a photograph of what happened. Pogacar “could have wrapped up the Tour de France with 15 stages to spare”.

Welcome back to Daniela Cotto of La Stampa, who reiterates: “We're only at the sixth stage of the long journey on French roads, but the race already seems decided. The Martian, the champion who lives to pedal and push beyond limits, strikes again”. Where does Taddeo want to go? Pier Augusto Stagi explains it to us in Il Giornale: “The Slovenian amazes us once again, one more time, giving the clear impression that we haven't yet reached the zenith, haven't yet seen the best version of Tadej Pogacar”. At L'Equipe, finally, on the day of celebration for the football victory over Morocco, all the evocative power of an image accompanying the piece, suitably grand with an introduction where overheated friction also finds space, by Alexandre Roos: the French sports newspaper headlines “Green light” and the large photo shows him, Pogacar, launched solo in the descent of Tourmalet. A Mozart-like escape.

GAZZETTA DELLO SPORT
A MAN ALONE AT THE FRONT
He could feel it. To the point that «on the bus, Wednesday afternoon, we did nothing but talk about this stage». To the point that «in the morning I woke up early, at 7 I was already thinking about what could happen. I was going crazy, I was excited». So there's not much to be surprised about: Tadej Pogacar produces masterpieces in series even when he improvises, let alone when he starts thinking about it a bit beforehand and really sets his mind to doing something enormous. (Ciro Scognamiglio)

CORRIERE DELLA SERA
POGACAR IN THE ELEVATOR, A RECORD-BREAKING CLIMB. «I HAD TO PUSH UNTIL I BURST»
He says he woke up at seven in the morning, too charged up to laze around any longer in the little three-star room costing 96 euros a night in Pau. He adds that he couldn't wait to get on the bike, to execute the battle plan agreed with his teammates the evening before, summed up by the Belgian Wellens with a «let's break everything». Tadej Pogacar decided yesterday to kill the Tour and he succeeded brilliantly.
In the form of a steel statue installed at the summit of Tourmalet, Octave Lapize is among the eyewitnesses to the murder. He who in 1910 was the first to reach the summit of the Pyrenees monster, saw Emirates set an infernal pace already on the Col d'Aspin and 4,800 meters from the summit saw Del Toro launch captain Pogi, Vingegaard surrender after just three pedal strokes and the Slovenian eclipse himself on the descent. (Marco Bonarrigo)

REPUBBLICA
THE TRUTH ABOUT TOURMALET, POGACAR ALREADY MASTER
VINGEGAARD DROPPED
In three years, today's Pogacar has given 2'23” to the 2023 Pogacar. The record from back then (45'35”) for climbing Tourmalet, shared with Vingegaard, was shattered by Tadej in the afternoon that could have wrapped up the Tour de France with 15 stages to spare. 43'12” to complete the most historic climb of the Grande Boucle, 17.7 km at 7% gradient with almost 1,300 meters of elevation gain. (Cosimo Cito)

LA STAMPA
POGACAR MAGIC, DOMINATES ON TOURMALET
A breathtaking victory. Tadej Pogacar chooses Tourmalet, the symbolic climb of the Pyrenees, to take control of the Tour de France. 42 kilometers from the finish he attacks alone. He creates a gap and crosses the finish line at Gavarnie-Gèvre (his 123rd career victory) with the certainty that the conquest of the Grande Boucle - his fifth victory and a record that projects him into history alongside Anquetil, Merckx, Hinault and Indurain - is within reach.
He bows, smiles and puts on the yellow jersey in front of President Macron. We're only at the sixth stage of the long journey on French roads, but the race already seems decided. The Martian, the champion who lives to pedal and push beyond limits, strikes again. (Daniela Cotto)

IL GIORNALE
POGACAR'S HOUSE
Taddeo bows before the Tour, but it's the Grande Boucle that does the same in the face of such majesty. The Slovenian amazes us once again, one more time, giving the clear impression that we haven't yet reached the zenith, haven't yet seen the best version of Tadej Pogacar, who grows year after year, leaving his adversaries speechless, forcing those who follow him to find new words. Even Tourmalet appears smaller in his presence. Tadej and the UAE Emirates men pass the Col d'Aspin with momentum. They're in a hurry to make things clear, to put the grill on a group already worn down by French heat. (Pier Augusto Stagi)

L'EQUIPE
GREEN LIGHT
Every pilgrimage to Tourmalet awakens the same sense of wonder at its wild beauty: the jagged, threatening rocky peaks that rise toward the sky; the gentleness of the slopes clothed in tender, unspoiled green; and that veil of heat haze that, on this Thursday, wrapped the surrounding peaks in an aura of mysticism. The giant of the Pyrenees is a temple we love to return to every summer: a place that makes us feel small, reminding us of our finite and minute nature, and where we preserve reassuring rituals: the eternal discussions about which side is the hardest or most beautiful, memories of years past and the smell of an overheated clutch at the end of a vertiginous descent. (Alexandre Roos)