Tadej Pogačar Could Turn La Vuelta Into a Blowout. It Might Be the Most Entertaining Race of the Year

Let’s face it, the Vuelta a España probably isn’t going to have much suspense at the top of the GC with Tadej Pogačar back in the race.

If recent history is any guide, Pog will show up in Monaco and bulldoze everyone. He will pile up stage wins, spend nearly all of three weeks in red, and maybe even run this thing tape-to-tape.

But don’t think for a minute this Vuelta is going to be boring or predictable.

Tadej freakin’ Pogačar is racing. This Vuelta could be off the charts.

Almost any race is better with the Slovenian superstar on the start line. He might suck some suspense out of the GC, but predictable? Baaah, Pogi is never that.

Cycling’s biggest star still races on instinct, emotion, and enough chutzpah to keep things interesting.

There might not be Jonas Vingegaard here or a hyper-ambitious Remco Evenepoel, but in a funny way, Pogačar dominating the GC all alone might actually make the rest of the race way more aggressive.

And this is the Vuelta. Weird things happen. It comes late in a long season, the heat can be brutal, and legs can turn to toast by September.

Pogačar hasn’t exactly owned Spain, either. Itzulia Basque Country remains one of the few major stage races he has never won and he hasn’t raced here since 2024.

Yes, Pog will absolutely want to win this Vuelta, and he will shape and dominate this race in ways to make it way more intriguing than if he were not here.

The only real question is how much destruction he feels like causing along the way.

Here’s why this Vuelta will be even better with Pog in full demolition mode:

Peak Pogačar: Let’s enjoy the show

I don’t have an inside line to Pog, but one can imagine that Mattias Skjelmose and Enric Mas probably aren’t causing Pogačar any sleepless nights. That’s not a knock on either of them.

Right now, outside of a few one-off days in the classics, Pogačar pretty much has everyone’s number.

We are now watching the totality of Pogi’s burning star. This is peak Pogačar, that rare stretch when one rider is simply better than everyone else. Think Greg LeMond before the hunting accident or Mark Cavendish reeling off 20-win-plus seasons.

These eras don’t last forever. Let’s enjoy this Vuelta for what it is.

I’d much rather watch this Vuelta with Pogačar ripping around Spain for the next three weeks than watching Enric Mas and Mikel Landa slug it out for best Spanish rider honors.

It should be a hell of a show for everyone except, perhaps, the riders trying to hold his wheel.

Does he want red on day one?

Pogačar could be a like cat playing with a mouse during this Vuelta, and the fun starts right in his backyard in his adopted Monaco home.

The Monte Carlo TT also creates an interesting early quandary. Even on the short, explosive, almost prologue-like distance of 9.4km, Pogačar could conceivably leave stage 1 already wearing red.

But does UAE really want to defend the Vuelta for the next 20 stages?

Maybe Pog smokes Monaco because Pog cannot help being Pog, especially on home roads. Then UAE spends the next few days trying to slip red onto the shoulders of some lucky rider in the breakaway.

The problem? The route rolls through Andorra on stage 4 and hits the first major summit finish on stage 7, and Pogačar could be right back in red anyway.

Or maybe he simply says, screw it, let’s go tape-to-tape in red.

How deep does he want to go?

How ugly this gets for everyone else will depend partly on how Pogačar feels and just how deep he wants to dig.

The world championships loom only two weeks after the Vuelta finishes in Granada on September 13.

There’s the brutal Spanish heat, three weeks of racing, the long flight to Canada, and then the small matter of trying to win a record-tying third rainbow jersey.

Pogačar will definitely have one eye on Montréal across the entire race. He won’t want to bury himself in Spain chasing every stage win.

Then again, he’s not going to leave the Vuelta hanging in the balance just to save a little extra for worlds.

Finding that balance between winning the Vuelta by absolutely torching it or perhaps leaving a little in the tank could become one of the most interesting Pog storylines of the race.

How many stages can Pogi win?

Another question is how hungry will Pogačar be when he rolls into Monaco?

This is a climber’s grand tour, with more than 58,000 meters of vertical, seven summit finishes, two time trials, and a couple more uphill kickers thrown in for good measure.

In other words, there are a lot of ways for Pogi to win during this Vuelta. But even full-demolition Pog won’t get near Freddy Maertens’ absurd record of 13 stage wins from 1977.

His grand tour high is six stage wins, set at both the 2024 Giro and 2024 Tour. He won five more at the Tour this July and probably left another two or three on the road while helping teammate Isaac del Toro reach the podium.

If a hungry Pog shows up in Spain, six wins feels entirely realistic. Maybe even more.

He already owns 35 career grand tour stage wins. Don’t be surprised if he blasts straight through 40 before reaching Granada.

When he sniffs a finish line, Pogi rarely holds back. Why change now?

First among mortals

If Pog is safely parked at the top of the GC, the fight behind him could turn into an absolute brawl.

And there’s no shame in finishing second to the best rider of this century. And for a bunch of riders and teams, Granada represents the last chance to put a big GC result on the board in 2026.

Skjelmose, Oscar Onley, Carlos Rodríguez, Matthew Riccitello, and Cian Uijtdebroeks are all chasing a first career grand tour podium. Then there are proven podium finishers such as Mas, Richard Carapaz, and Felix Gall, plus aging war horses Mikel Landa and Primož Roglič.

None of them are Pog level, but racing between themselves, things could get interesting.

The tactics could get wild, too. Once everyone stops dreaming about taking time on Pogačar, they can start working on destroying each other.

First among the mortals? That’s still a hell of a prize to take out of this Pog Vuelta.

What about the points jersey?

Here’s something Pogačar still has never won — a points jersey at a grand tour.

He finished second in the competition in his Vuelta debut in 2019 and again at the Tour in 2025. Tour officials even changed the points system this year, in part to tilt the competition back toward the sprinters.

The Vuelta could be different. With so many uphill finishes suited to Pogačar, he could find himself in the green jersey hunt without really trying.

And once the GC is locked down? It’s not hard to imagine Pog deciding to chase green simply because he can.

A few intermediate sprints here, another stage win there, maybe it could turn it into a fun side quest to keep himself entertained for three weeks.

A chance to see Pog the patron

This also could be the Vuelta where we really see Pogačar rule the peloton as its patron.

Cycling’s old school patron might not exist anymore in today’s less-toxic peloton, but all the ingredients are here during this Vuelta for Pogi to play the boss.

UAE will bring the only team strong enough to control the race almost whenever it wants. Once Pogačar has red and a comfortable cushion, the shape of the Vuelta could come down largely to what he wants to do on any given stage.

That’s the power of being the boss.

Pogačar is generally very generous with the peloton and it’s unlikely we’d ever see Pogi throwing punches at striking miners, a la Bernard Hinault.

But he could spend the next three weeks deciding how everyone else gets to race the 2026 Vuelta.

The question every morning in the UAE team meeting could be pretty simple — what does Pog feel like doing today?

What could go wrong?

Of course, the first flag hasn’t even dropped yet. Pogačar still has to get through 21 stages and three weeks of Spanish heat with his bike, mind, and body intact.

Crashes, punctures, mental and physical fatigue, and illness can turn any grand tour upside down overnight.

We haven’t really seen Pogačar crack since the Tours of 2022 and 2023, and he’s been operating on another level ever since. But nothing is guaranteed in bike racing.

In fact, Pogačar has become so dominant that even the smallest sign of vulnerability would blow up social media.

Will it happen? I doubt it. Some pundits say Pogi could win this Vuelta on a pogo stick.

But that’s why they still have to race the thing.

The Pog Show returns

And finally, La Vuelta has never seen this version of Tadej Pogačar.

The last time he raced the Vuelta was 2019, when he was a 20-year-old even-more-baby-faced neo-pro winning three stages and finishing third in his grand tour debut.

Seven years later, he returns as a five-time Tour winner, Giro champion, two-time world champion, and the biggest star in cycling.

That alone will change the feel of this Vuelta.

The Spanish fans will go nuts. In fact, he hasn’t raced on Spanish roads since winning the 2024 Volta a Catalunya.

La Vuelta doesn’t need Pogačar to be worth watching. It’s one of cycling’s three grand tours, and this year it serves up the most vertical of all three.

But having the biggest rider of this generation back for the first time in seven years? That turns up the hype on everything in this race.

The Pog Show is coming back to La Vuelta. Don’t think for a minute this Vuelta is going to be boring.