Defending champion Team Emirates-XRG's Pogacar out to bury ghosts in final Tour de France week

Pogacar is riding not just for the yellow jersey on the Tour de France, but also to bury the ghosts of the past.

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As the 2025 Tour de France heads into its final and most punishing mountain stages, the defending champion is about to tackle climbs where he cracked or struggled before.

The Mont Ventoux and Col de la Loze await again. But this time, things feel different.

"I'm almost confident to say the route was designed to scare me," Pogacar said with a smile on Monday.

"But I always look at it as a race situation. I actually like all of these climbs."

This year, he has already won at Hautacam, where his Tour hopes vanished in 2022 when he was beaten by chief rival Jonas Vingegaard, who ended up 2:10 behind the Slovenian.

Pogacar is 4:13 ahead of the Dane in the general classification as he marches towards a fourth Tour title.

In his sixth campaign, Pogacar speaks with the assurance of a man determined to make peace with painful memories.

"Col de la Loze, for me, is one of the hardest climbs I've ever done," he conceded. "I'm not looking for revenge. I just want to have better legs than those days in the past."