The Tour de France champion, Tadej Pogacar, has confirmed that he will race in the Vuelta a España, which starts in Monaco on 22 August. The five-time Tour winner will be seeking to match the rare achievement of long-term rival, Jonas Vingegaard, who completed a grand slam of all three Grand Tours, by winning the Giro d’Italia in May.
“I’m excited to say I’m going back to La Vuelta,” Pogacar said. “It was my first-ever Grand Tour back in 2019 and an amazing experience. Spain is a country I love to visit and race in and I think the time is right to go back.
“The motivation is high to finish off the year in a good way and the Vuelta will be a big target. The team is strong and we hope to do good things.”
The Slovene made his Grand Tour debut in the 2019 Vuelta and was an overnight sensation, finishing third behind the winner, and compatriot, Primoz Roglic, while winning three stages and the best young rider classification.
This year’s Vuelta includes eight mountain stages and more than 40km of individual time trials. From the opening weekend’s time trial in Monaco, the race heads to Andorra and follows the Mediterranean coast before a flurry of stages, centred on Córdoba, Málaga and Seville, lead to a closing stage in Granada on 13 September.
Pogacar hinted midway through his successful Tour de France defence that he was likely to start the Spanish race, after Prince Albert of Monaco said he expected Pogacar to compete. “If the Prince says that, then the chance is high,” Pogacar said.
But his post-Tour fatigue suggested the decision had still to be made. “Right now, I don’t feel fresh enough to ride the Vuelta if it started tomorrow,” he said after sealing overall victory in Paris, “but in two weeks I can still decide.”
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Although burnout has recently been a subject of debate in the peloton, with Vingegaard now expected to take the rest of the year off after breaking his collarbone during the Tour, Pogacar has a packed schedule for the rest of the year, including the World Road Race Championships in Montreal on 27 September, two weeks after the Vuelta finishes.
