Tadej Pogačar has delivered an ominous and stunning start to the Vuelta a España, edging British rider Ethan Hayter by just 0.09 seconds in the opening stage time trial.
However, the world number one said after the race that he had hoped Britain’s Josh Tarling would come out on top.
Tarling was competing in the Vuelta just days after his brother Finlay Tarling was killed when he was hit by a non-accredited car on the course during the Volta a Portugal.
Competing despite his brother’s death, Tarling delivered a blistering time of his own to be well in contention for stage honours.
As it happened, Soudal Quick-Step’s Hayter finished four seconds faster than his grieving compatriot, with Pogačar pipping them both, before saying it would have been fitting had Tarling claimed victory.
“When I was going to the start line, I saw that Josh has the best time and, I really wish he wins today,” Pogačar said at the finish.
“For sure I would do my best, but it was also this kind of strange moment. I was really rooting, myself, for Josh.
“Then I came to the intermediate [time check] and I hear a different name [over the radio], I hear Ethan Hayter was ahead of me by three seconds and I say, ‘OK, I give it my all but no risks’ and then we’ll see what happens.
“I would really like to see Josh do well at this Vuelta.”
Tarling’s Netcompany INEOS director sportif Geraint Thomas was also full of praise for Tarling.
“It’s been great to have him here. He was really keen to ride and wanted to get back to the day job and find comfort in the process and be around the team to be a normal as possible,” fellow Welshman Thomas said.
“It’s been unimaginable what he’s gone through this last week or so.
Josh Tarling was awarded the white jersey as the race’s Most Combative Rider after the first stage. (Getty Images: Tim de Waele)
“To put in a performance like that at the end of the week or so is just fantastic and shows the class of him as person and an athlete, so [we] couldn’t be prouder.
“I think the course suited him technically. He’s one of the best and yesterday was probably the first time he’s ridden a bike properly in a while, so to still put that in is insane, really.
“We’ll just continue to be normal around him now and support as best we can.”
Tarling’s parents, Michael and Dawn, had both given their eldest son their blessing to compete at the Vuelta, saying it was what his brother would have wanted.
“Finlay was so incredibly proud of his big brother, and would be watching, nose to the TV and shouting as he competed,” they wrote in a post on social media.
“So it is right that Josh honours that love.”
Tarling, for his part, said he was “super happy” with his performance.
“I’m super happy, as happy as I can be,” he said.
“I needed to distract myself. Thanks to my family for giving me the blessing to come here and just do another bike race.”
Pogačar looking for history
Tadej Pogačar powers through the streets of Monaco to make the perfect start to the Spanish Vuelta. (Getty Images: Laurent Coust/Europa Press)
Pogačar, who’s bidding to become just the ninth men’s rider to win all three Grand Tours in their career, put himself in position from the offset by completing the highly technical 9.5-kilometre course through the streets of Monaco — where he resides — in 10 minutes, 57 seconds.
Pogačar is competing at the Vuelta for the first time since making his Grand Tour debut as a 20-year-old in the 2019 race. He won three stages and finished third, which incredibly is his worst overall result in the three-week events.
This year is going much better, though.
Why these people believe in ‘freak’ Pogačar’s victories
Pogačar won the Tour de France for the third-straight time to claim his fifth overall title in July, equalling the record for the most overall wins at the race.
The two-time reigning world champion also won the Tour de Suisse and Tour de Romandie stage races as well as celebrating victories at three of the year’s one-day monument races — Liège-Bastogne-Liège, the Ronde van Vlaanderen and Milano-Sanremo — while finishing second in the other, Paris-Roubaix.
He also claimed victory in Strade Bianche and has now finished first in 17 of the 38 race days he has completed in 2026.
Pogačar won the Giro d’Italia at the first attempt in 2024, so the Vuelta is the only Grand Tour race he is yet to conquer.
The only other men to have won all three are Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil, Alberto Contador, Chris Froome, Felice Gimondi, Vincenzo Nibali and his long-time rival, Jonas Vingegaard.
The win was Pogačar’s first in the opening stage of a Grand Tour, and it’s also the first time he took the red jersey as the Vuelta leader. It’s his 36th Grand Tour stage win altogether.
No man has led the Vuelta from start to finish since Swiss legend Tony Rominger did so during the 1994 race.
Such a feat has only happened eight times in men’s grand tour history, three times at the Vuelta.
Merckx, the man to whom Pogačar is so often compared, managed the feat once too, at the 1973 Giro d’Italia.
Pogačar’s main rival, Vingegaard, is not racing at the 81st edition of the Vuelta as he recovers from a broken collarbone sustained in a crash the day after he was woken at 2am for a doping test at the Tour de France.
Remco Evenepoel, who finished second behind Pogačar at the Tour, is also not competing. The Belgian rider has opted for rest and specific training for the Road World Championships in Montréal next month.
Monaco became the first city to host the start of all three Grand Tours. The Giro d’Italia started in the principality in 1966 and it staged the start of the Tour de France in 2009.
Much of the time trial route on Saturday covered the same course as the annual Formula 1 Grand Prix.
The second stage will also start in Monaco before a 214.3km hilly trek through Provence to Manosque. It will be the longest stage of the race, which finishes in the southern Spanish city of Granada on September 13.
ABC/AP