POGACAR TO RIDE VUELTA A ESPANA FOR GRAND TOUR TREBLE

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Newly crowned five-time Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar will race in this month's Vuelta a Espana in an attempt to win all three of cycling's Grand Tours.

The Slovenian UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider will be the runaway favourite to win the three-week Grand Tour after becoming the joint most successful Tour de France champion of all time last month, alongside fellow greats Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault and Miguel Indurain.

Pogacar won the 2024 Giro d'Italia by nearly 10 minutes, and would become only the ninth rider to win all three Grand Tours in history should he triumph in Spain.

The 27-year-old finished third at the Tour of Spain as a youngster in 2019.

"I'm excited to say I'm going back to La Vuelta," said Pogacar. "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."

This year's race begins in Monaco on 22 August and finishes in Granada on 13 September, with 21 stages across three weeks including time trials, sprints, rolling hills and high mountains.

Pogacar has won almost all of the sport's biggest races. In addition to his five Tour titles he has won the Tour of Flanders (three times), Milan-San Remo (once), the Road World Championships (twice), Il Lombardia (five times), Liege-Bastogne-Liege (four times) and the Giro.

He is also expected to try to defend his Road World Championships rainbow jersey in Montreal, Canada, just a week after La Vuelta finishes.

While La Vuelta is considered a main event on cycling's World Tour, the sport's top talents in the modern era will often prioritise the Tour de France at the expense of the Vuelta and the Giro.

Merckx, Anquetil and Hinault (twice) all won La Vuelta during their careers.

Following victory at this year's Tour,

Pogacar beat Belgium's Remco Evenepoel by more than six minutes at this year's Tour de France, and he is expected to win the Vuelta by an even bigger margin.

Famed for his explosive launch and metronomic high pace on stages, he is not showing any signs of fatigue or weakness.

Pogacar has won six of the seven World Tour races he has competed in this year, finishing second at Paris-Roubaix in April in a dramatic dash to the line with Belgium's Wout van Aert.

- Matt Warwick

'I SAW HIM SHIVERING FROM THE COLD AT THE PODIUM' - MATHIEU VAN DER POEL LOST FLANDERS BECAUSE OF HIS SOLO AT THE RAINY E3 SAXO CLASSIC

Mathieu van der Poel was the only challenger of Tadej Pogacar at Tour of Flanders, but even he had to surrender when Slovenian accelerated on the last time Oude Kwaremont. It's the Dutchman's first defeat in a one-day race this season and compatriot Sep Vanmarcke thinks Van der Poel's hunger for victories caught up to him.

Vanmarcke saw the first signs of Van der Poel's illness coming at last week's E3 Saxo Classic. The former pro saw the winner shivering from the cold during the ceremonies after the race. Vanmarcke in the podcast Café Koers: "Everyone saw that formidable solo in Harelbeke, but everyone also saw that it was raining. I then saw him really suffering from the cold at the podium."

It didn't stop there. "Then he had to go to the analysts' booth and he had a coat on, but he was still cold. Then he had another coat on during the press conference, but I saw that he was still cold... Then one plus one plus one is three. After the Tour I saw him after the podium and then I spoke to him. He said that I had already found out, but no, I saw that he was cold and said that could be dangerous."

That turned out to be the case. "He said he had already felt something in the race, but that he had completely come through it during the E3 Saxo Classic. And then he got cold and couldn't shower for a long time. I'm not saying I have the whole truth, but of course it all played a part."

Add the crash and the times he was positioned too far and you simply come up short against Pogacar. "He wasn't that far, but when Pogacar goes you have to get to him as quickly as possible. He did indeed pass an INEOS rider on the Oude Kwaremont as if he were a cycling tourist. A strange phase that we didn't see."

- Ondrej Zhasil

2025 TOUR OF FLANDERS | ANALYSIS | IS TADEJ POGACĀR THE GOAT?