Four days after the triumphant conclusion of the 2026 Tour de France, Tadej Pogacar continues to receive unanimous praise and compliments for what he achieved during the three weeks of racing that led him to wear his fifth yellow jersey of his career on the podium in Paris.

The latest to join the chorus of voices that have lauded the champion of the world's accomplishments is Jan Ullrich, who, speaking on the podcast "Ulle & Rick" that he regularly hosts with fellow German cycling legend Rick Zabel, made no attempt to hide his amazement at the feats of the world champion.

"It was a superlative Tour de France. I believe Pogacar could have won eight stages," stated decisively the fifty-two-year-old from Rostock, who was particularly captivated by how the Slovenian tackled and then won on the Alpe d'Huez on the last Friday of the race.

"There he truly showed what he's made of: it was the best performance of the Tour de France. He attacked and went all out to the top: this is what Pogacar knows how to do," Ullrich exclaimed before agreeing with those who, during and after the Grande Boucle, went so far as to call the native of Klanec the greatest of all time.

"The experts say that Tadej has revolutionized cycling and is the best of all time: this is also my opinion. A Pogacar like the one we see today would have outclassed all of us in my era: Pantani, Armstrong and me included. He could win the Tour de France with a ten-minute advantage over the second-placed rider, if he only wanted to."

No one, therefore, even in the past, could have come close to today's Pogacar: according to Ullrich, everyone, from first to last, would have nonetheless suffered from the overwhelming ease of pedaling of the two-time road world champion, incurring the same time gaps and receiving the same treatment over the course of the three weeks.

Despite this, the German is convinced that, if he had today at his disposal the resources available to the talent of UAE Team Emirates-XRG, without doping he would have nonetheless performed and achieved better results than those he obtained in the years when he was a protagonist.

"I'm certain that nowadays I could have done much, much better than I did back then. The Ullrich of the past, even without doping, would have been much better with the resources available today. I wonder, for example, why in the past we never thought to put ice cubes in our jersey to cool ourselves down," concluded the winner of the 1997 Tour de France, who in any case, from what he made clear, if there had been a Pogacar in the mix, would likely have found himself having to yield to him.