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Can Pogačar Complete Pro Cycling?


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Only Milan-San Remo, Paris-Roubaix, and the Vuelta a España stand in the way of Tadej Pogačar completing pro cycling.

He’s won the Tour de France, Giro d’Italia, three monuments, the world title, and almost everything else, after all.

“First I want to win the world championships, then San Remo, then we can see if there’s space for Roubaix,” Pogačar recently told Peter Attia.

“The Vuelta, my first grand tour in 2019 with the podium, that was a breakthrough for me. I want to go back and seal the deal with the red jersey for sure,” Pogačar told Attia ahead of road worlds in an episode of the Drive podcast.

San Remo, Roubaix, and the Vuelta are the final morsels Pogačar needs to munch on to maybe convince Eddy Merckx who is the ultimate GOAT.

Less tasty tapas like Tour de Suisse and E3 Saxo Classic can wait.

Yet the puzzle of La Primavera, the punishment of the pavé, and the complications of La Vuelta will make them stubborn lines to check off the to-do list, even for Pogačar.

Pogačar acknowledged it’s only a matter of time before he puts all his powers into conquering the final monuments and grand tour that have eluded him.

So when might we see it happen?

‘San Remo is the one that’s going to send me to the grave’

Pogačar still hasn’t cracked San Remo. (Photo: Luca Bettini – Pool/Getty Images)

Milan-San Remo is a fiendishly problematic puzzle for any rider. Just look at Philippe Gilbert, who could never crack La Primavera and complete his long-sought monument sweep.

San Remo could be a similarly pesky stone in Pogačar’s shoe.

He sprayed attacks all over the Poggio in 2023 but couldn’t pierce Mathieu van der Poel’s armor. He launched one huge haymaker in 2024, but it didn’t hit the mark.

Third on the podium remains Pogačar’s best result from three starts.

“San Remo is the one that’s going to send me to the grave,” Pogačar told Attia. “I’m getting so close but it’s yet so far. It’s unbelievable.”

MSR is the race that so far frustrates Pogačar the most. It’s also the unchecked box he can’t help but hover his pen over.

San Remo’s placement on the calendar allows Pogačar to hoover up some early stage-races before he heads to Milan, and recover for the Ardennes after he’s cooled off in San Remo.

It’s highly likely Pogačar will be back next March for his fifth start at Milan-San Remo.

He’ll be accompanied by the usual wave of speculation.

“Will Pogačar attack on the Cipressa?” “Is Pogi audacious enough to go as early as the Capi?” Etc, etc.

Yet San Remo is the one race Pogačar can’t just bludgeon to his will.

Fair fortune and the micro-management of every movement are as decisive as pure power when it comes to the final canter down the Via Roma.

We were also saying that Pogačar wouldn’t dare attack 100km from the finish of road worlds, however.

Pogačar to Roubaix? One day.

Pogačar made mayhem on the cobblestone stage of the 2022 Tour de France. (Photo: BERNARD PAPON/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)

Roubaix sits at the opposite end of the spectrum from San Remo for Pogačar.

It sounds insane to say it, but Pogačar could probably tame the “Hell of the North” in his very first appearance.

Just look at how he tore apart the Tour of Flanders last April and caused chaos in the cobblestone stage of the Tour de France the year before that.

If Pogačar were to win in the Roubaix velodrome next spring, resplendent in the rainbow jersey, he would surely consecrate himself as the modern Merckx.

Yet while Pogačar is a joker, he’s no fool.

“You will see me in Paris-Roubaix one day for sure but first things first,” he said this summer. “Let’s go step by step, see how the season goes and how the next season goes. Then we can start to dream of Paris-Roubaix and other goals maybe.”

UAE Emirates head honcho Mauro Gianetti indicated this weekend he won’t send Pogačar bouncing up the Trouée d’Arenberg and Carrefour de L’Arbre without first doing the groundwork.

A serious assault on Roubaix would require copious recons, material testing, and the willingness to risk the Tour de France.

That’s not going to happen in 2025.

The risk of Roubaix vs the reward of the Tour

Pogačar’s calendar will revolve around the Tour de France for the foreseeable. (Photo: MARCO BERTORELLO/AFP via Getty Images))

As much as the world wants to see Pogi take on the 80kg carthorses at Paris-Roubaix, the inevitable fact is that “The Tour is the Tour.”

It’s the center of the cycling universe, even for its three-time champion.

“The Tour de France is the biggest race of cycling,” Pogačar said in the Drive podcast. “To keep being on top you need to do the Tour.”

“I will keep on riding the tour until I don’t enjoy the stress anymore,” Pogačar told podcast host Attia. “Maybe then I will hang up the bicycle in the garage or somewhere.”

Racing Roubaix comes laden with risk.

Even the best cobble-bashers risk breaking bones and busting ribs on the punishing pavé.

Pogačar’s memory of breaking his wrist last year in Liège might put a handbrake on a trip to Hell in 2025. It proved a setback that cost him a yellow jersey, much like how Vingegaard was left chasing after he broke his body in the Basque Country.

For now, Roubaix will have to wait for Pogačar.

The Tour is too big a prize to jeopardize for both Pogačar and those pulling the pursestrings at UAE Emirates.

Another maillot jaune would put Pogačar level with Chris Froome and one title closer to the mythical five-time champion club.

For a rider like Pogačar, that’s some seriously juicy bait.

His name wouldn’t look out of place alongside those of Merckx, Miguel Indurain, Bernard Hinault, and Jacques Anquetil, after all.

Back to where it all began: A return to the Vuelta

Baby-faced Pogačar blew to the big time when he won three stages, the youth jersey, and finished third overall in his Vuelta debut. Photo: )OSCAR DEL POZO/AFP via Getty Images)

And the Vuelta?

A baby-faced Pogačar bounded onto the world stage with his rookie rampage around Spain in 2019.

His swaggering assault on the mountains earned him three stage-wins, a breakout spot on the podium, and laid a marker for what was to come.

A 2024-power Pogačar could probably win the Vuelta by more than a dozen minutes if he wanted to.

It’s unlikely that Pogačar will return to the Giro d’Italia next season, so a 2025 Tour-Vuelta double could be a reality.

It will also be a tantalizing prospect for victory-hungry Pogi.

Racing the Tour de France and Vuelta a España is a kinder double than the brutish back-to-back of the Giro and the Tour. Froome pulled off the late-summer double in 2017, and Vingegaard went 1-2 only last year.

A summer tour of Spain would also set up Pogačar very nicely for his rainbow jersey defense in Rwanda a few weeks later.

Vuelta a España director Javier Guillén has been hoping to lure Pogačar back to his race for years. His dream could be fulfilled in 2025, and it will be colored by rainbows.

More tasty morsels for Pogačar? TDU and L.A.

Pogačar in 2019
Pogačar made his WorldTour debut at the 2019 TDU and hasn’t been back since. (Photo: Peter Mundy/Getty Images))

Pogačar wants to complete the WorldTour.

He can’t do that without a trip Down Under.

“I know Tadej wants to return to two races, the Vuelta and the Tour Down Under … He took part in 2019. It was even his first race as a pro,” Pogačar’s agent Alex Carera said after the Slovenian slayed the 2024 Tour de France.

A mid-winter stop-off in Australia wouldn’t cause complications for a sponsor-pleasing jaunt at the February UAE Tour or the spring classics.

It’s only a matter of time before Pogačar adds the Willunga Hill to his collection of KOMs.

And a long way down the line … the Olympic Games?

Pogačar couldn’t hang with Richard Carapaz in Tokyo 2021 and sat out the race in 2024 due to “fatigue” … or maybe protest at his partner Urška Žigart’s omission from Team Slovenia.

An Olympic medal would be the absolute cherry on top of Pogačar’s palmarès.

It would also see him out-Merckx Merckx. The Belgian raced the Games once and had to make do with 12th.

“It’s in Los Angeles in four years. I really hope for a nice parcours, a climbing parcours like it was in Tokyo, or even harder,” Pogačar told Attia of the 2028 Olympics. “We’ll see when they announce it how eager I am.”

Pogačar will be tilting toward 30 when the gates open on the LA Games.

There’s no chance the insatiable Slovenian would want to wait another Olympic cycle for Brisbane 2032.

You can bet Pogačar has booked a ticket to LAX already.

 





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