{"id":240300,"date":"2025-10-25T17:22:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/240300\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T17:22:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T17:22:07","slug":"we-couldnt-make-it-any-closer-to-home-vuelta-a-espana-director-urges-tadej-pogacar-to-finally-target-2026-edition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/240300\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cWe couldn\u2019t make it any closer to home\u201d \u2013 Vuelta a Espana director urges Tadej Pogacar to finally target 2026 edition"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\u201cTo enrich his legend, he needs to win all three\u201d<\/p>\n

Pogacar, a four-time Tour de France winner and reigning Giro d\u2019Italia champion, has yet to conquer La Vuelta \u2014 the only Grand Tour missing from his palmar\u00e8s. Guillen believes that should be motivation enough:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s already a legend of cycling,\u201d Guillen said, \u201cbut to enrich that legend, he needs to win all three Grand Tours. The only one he hasn\u2019t won yet is the Vuelta, and that should be enough of an incentive.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Slovenian last rode the race in 2019, stunning the cycling world with three stage victories and a third-place finish on GC at just 19 years old. Now, Guillen hopes that Pogacar\u2019s current base in Monaco might finally tip the balance: \u201cWe couldn\u2019t make it any closer to home,\u201d he smiled.<\/p>\n

Pogacar\u2019s packed calendar remains the stumbling block<\/p>\n

Convincing Pogacar to return to La Vuelta has long been a challenge for organisers. The World Championships continue to clash with the race, and the 2026 edition \u2014 held in Montreal on the demanding circuit of the Canadian Classic \u2014 is seen as a major target for the Slovenian.<\/p>\n

Inside UAE Team Emirates – XRG<\/a>, there\u2019s also concern about overloading their star. A Tour-Vuelta double followed by the Worlds in late September would be a gruelling sequence, especially after Pogacar\u2019s intense early-season campaigns at Milano\u2013Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, and Li\u00e8ge\u2013Bastogne\u2013Li\u00e8ge.<\/p>\n

In 2025, La Vuelta wasn\u2019t ruled out completely until after the Tour, but the fatigue Pogacar showed in Paris \u2014 particularly in his final duel with Wout van Aert on Montmartre \u2014 highlighted the difficulty of sustaining such a demanding schedule.<\/p>\n

Still, Guillen\u2019s Monaco invitation has reignited speculation. Could 2026 finally be the year that Pogacar returns to Spain in order to try and complete his Grand Tour collection? As Guillen himself said \u2014 there\u2019s no harm in trying.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cTo enrich his legend, he needs to win all three\u201d Pogacar, a four-time Tour de France winner…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":240301,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-240300","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}