Pogacar targets Vuelta crown and a place among cycling's immortals
Tadej Pogacar starts the 2026 Vuelta a España on Saturday as the overwhelming favourite to win the one Grand Tour missing from his collection — and, with it, a piece of cycling history.
The 27-year-old Slovenian, who lives in Monaco, has won the Tour de France five times and the Giro d'Italia once. He has never won the Vuelta. Victory in Spain this September would be his seventh Grand Tour title and make him the ninth rider to have won all three, joining a list that reads Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil, Felice Gimondi, Alberto Contador, Vincenzo Nibali, Chris Froome and Jonas Vingegaard (The Guardian).
Pogacar is making his first Vuelta appearance since 2019. He arrives in formidable form: in July he won the Tour de France by almost six and a half minutes, and he has not lost a Grand Tour since 2023. He is also aiming to become the first rider to complete the Tour-Vuelta double — winning both in the same season — since Chris Froome in 2017 (The Guardian).
The race begins with an opening time trial in Monaco on 21 August and finishes in Granada on 13 September. Over 21 stages and 3,275 kilometres, the route hugs the Mediterranean — crossing Provence and the Pyrenees via Andorra — and serves up seven summit finishes, the first of them at Font Romeu on stage three (The Guardian; La Vuelta).
Pogacar's strongest rivals are conspicuously absent. Vingegaard, who won the Giro in May, crashed out of the Tour de France on the afternoon after a 2am doping test and is recovering from a collarbone fracture. Remco Evenepoel, the Tour runner-up, is also sitting out the Vuelta (The Guardian).
Vingegaard's absence carries a darker edge. Danish rider Mattias Skjelmose has said his compatriot has grown disheartened by Pogacar's dominance, quoting Vingegaard as saying he produces the best performances of his career and Pogacar still rides away from him (The Guardian).
Without those two, the list of credible challengers thins. Cyclingnews' contender analysis names Felix Gall and Oscar Onley among the top 10, and The Athletic's race preview also describes Pogacar as the overwhelming favourite (Cyclingnews; The Athletic).
UAE Team Emirates-XRG confirmed Pogacar's participation on 3 August, naming a squad built around him: Joao Almeida, Jay Vine, Pavel Sivakov, Pablo Torres, Kevin Vermaerke, Domen Novak and Ivo Oliveira (UAE Team Emirates-XRG).
Off the road, Pogacar is expected to sign a new contract with UAE Emirates XRG that would keep him with the team until 2031, possibly 2032 (The Guardian).
For cycling fans, the question hovering over this Vuelta is not whether Pogacar can win. He has answered that every time he has started a three-week race since 2023. The question is whether anyone can stay close enough to make him sweat on those seven summit finishes — or whether the race for red becomes a coronation.
