Tadej Pogacar targets Tour de France, Paris-Roubaix and Milan-San Remo in 2026
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UAE Team Emirates-XRG's Slovenian rider Tadej Pogacar arriving at the hotel following a training session in Benidorm, eastern Spain, on Dec 13, 2025.
PHOTO: AFP
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BENIDORM – Cycling superstar Tadej Pogacar of the UAE Team Emirates-XRG will try for a fifth Tour de France title in 2026, but is more excited by the two one-day Monuments that have so far eluded him; Paris-Roubaix and Milan San Remo.
The 27-year-old Slovenian was speaking on Dec 13 at a pre-season training camp at Benidorm in Spain.
“I’m going to do Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, the Tour de Romandie, and the Tour de France. And then we’ll see, that’s already quite a lot,” Pogacar said.
“If I could choose between a win at Roubaix or the Tour, I would choose Roubaix because I have already won the Tour four times,” said Pogacar, who complained of feeling drained during the 2025 Tour.
“There is a bigger difference between zero and one than between four and five,” he added.
Tour de France champion in 2020, 2021, 2024 and 2025, he can join an elite clique of five-time winners alongside Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Miguel Indurain and Jacques Anquetil next July.
“The Tour de France of course is the biggest race, everybody always arrives ready, teams always send their best team and you have to be super ready,” he said.
“But if I won Roubaix and San Remo, I would feel sort of complete, but there’s always something else, like The Vuelta, I haven’t won that either,” he said, while refusing to be drawn on his participation in the Spanish Tour for 2026.
Fellow Slovenian Primoz Roglic will skip the Tour de France to focus on winning a record fifth La Vuelta title.
Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe’s Roglic won his fourth Vuelta title in 2024 to move level with Spaniard Roberto Heras, but the 36-year-old has not seen the same level of success at the Tour de France, coming closest in 2020, when he finished runner-up behind Pogacar.
He finished eighth overall in 2025, well behind Pogacar.
Asked about the decision, Roglic told reporters: “(If) I can choose one race to win, I would sign the Tour de France.
“I mean, it’s not a secret, but as I said, the reality is different. The level that I was finishing was different, and the first point to consider about myself is how to find the way to be competitive and compete for victories and focus my energy and everything only on that – the rest will follow.”
Breakout star of 2025 Isaac del Toro, however, will race the Tour de France.
The Mexican burst on to the cycling scene last May when he came close to winning the Giro d’Italia, before finishing second to Simon Yates.
“The team’s idea is for me to learn as much as possible alongside Tadej, whose level I want to reach one day,” said Del Toro.
Pogacar spoke glowingly of Del Toro.
“Maybe he’s going to be better than me one day. He has his own way, his own style, and I admire him as a rider and a person and hope he keeps going that way.” said Pogacar. AFP, REUTERS
