Tadej Pogačar has made his strongest hint yet that he will race this year’s Vuelta a España, and bid to become the ninth male rider to win all three Grand Tours.
Prince Albert of Monaco, who was a guest of honour during yesterday’s stage and is welcoming the Vuelta’s Gran Salida to his principality next month, told reporters “Tadej Pogačar said he would be at the start, so I hope that happens.”
When the prince’s comments were put to the race leader after yesterday’s stage, won by Mauro Schmid from the breakaway, Pogačar, a Monaco resident, replied, “If the Prince said, then it’s a high chance.”
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Pogačar’s comments came after stage 13, where the four-time winner maintained a lead of 3’36” over his nearest rival Jonas Vingegaard. Despite losing the opening Team Time Trial and briefly conceding the yellow jersey to Uno-X Mobility, the race leader has appeared unmatched during the race, twice dropping his rivals to win stages solo with long-range attacks. Today’s stage in the Vosges mountains looks tailor-made for a fourth Pogačar stage win of this race, and his 25th overall.
The UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider has a history of being coy about his racing plans, having notably announced he was riding Paris-Roubaix for the first time just a fortnight before he made his debut in 2025, becoming the first reigning Tour de France winner to ride the cobbled classic since Greg LeMond in 1991.
An appearance at the Vuelta would not be as surprising. In recent years his calendar has been oriented around ‘ticking off’ the most prestigious races on the calendar. That said, there had been speculation that Pogačar would delay his Vuelta appearance to next year.
The Canadian one-day races in September are held shortly before this year’s World Championships in Montreal, as well as October’s European Championships taking place in his native Slovenia, and the autumn Italian classics culminating with Il Lombardia. At all of these races Pogačar is the defending champion.
He announced he would make his debut at the Giro d’Italia in 2024 following two consecutive Tour de France defeats to Jonas Vingegaard, at a time when he was considered the underdog heading into the biggest race of the season.
However, the Dane suffered a near career-ending crash at the Volta a Catalunya that year, whilst Pogačar raised his level under his new coach Javier Sola. Since then, the Slovenian has been dominant across all-terrain. Earlier this year he won Milan-Sanremo, long considered a sprinter’s classic, for the first time in his career. He has also finished second in Paris-Roubaix for two years in a row.
Should Pogačar ride and win the Vuelta, only the ‘Hell of the North’ and the one-week Tour of the Basque Country will remain ‘unwon’ among cycling’s most prestigious stage and one-day races. Pogačar, who is currently contracted to 2030, by which point he’ll be 32, has also spoken of wanting to target the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles.
Pogačar’s sole appearance at the Vuelta a Espana so far was in 2019, where he won three stages, including from a long-range attack on the penultimate stage to finish on the podium on his Grand Tour debut. Should he appear on the startline in August, he would be the overwhelming favourite for the race win.
His closest rival at the Tour de France, Vingegaard, will not race the Vuelta having raced the Giro d’Italia in the spring, whilst Primoz Roglic, a four-time winner of the race, is now 36 and has not been able to replicate his best form so far this season.
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Such is the scale of his dominance that his nearest rivals can rarely follow his accelerations, and few even try to. Meanwhile his race calendar is tracked the world over. No other rider would warrant a road.cc race programme speculation article, for instance.
