{"id":345800,"date":"2025-12-13T17:41:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T17:41:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345800\/"},"modified":"2025-12-13T17:41:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T17:41:08","slug":"tadej-pogacar-eyes-paris-roubaix-victory-and-historic-fifth-tour-de-france-title-as-focal-points-of-confirmed-2026-racing-programme","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/345800\/","title":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar eyes Paris-Roubaix victory and historic fifth Tour de France title as focal points of confirmed 2026 racing programme"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> has confirmed that he is chasing a victory at Paris-Roubaix<\/a> and a historic fifth Tour de France<\/a> title as the focal points of his racing programme with UAE Team Emirates-XRG<\/a> in 2026.<\/p>\n

The reigning World Champion outlined his spring schedule that includes targeted Monuments: Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix – a race he finished second at this year – and Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge before turning his attention to stage races that will lead up to his next yellow-jersey bid at the Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse.<\/p>\n

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Asked if he had to choose between winning Paris-Roubaix for the first time or a fifth Tour de France, Poga\u010dar said he would rather have a victory at the Hell of the North.<\/p>\n

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“I think I would choose Roubaix because I already won the Tour four times, and if you win four or five, it is not … I think, it’s a bigger difference between zero and one than four and five,” Poga\u010dar said.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar confirmed his racing schedule to select members of the media, including Cyclingnews, assembled at a team training camp press conference held at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel in Benidorm, Alicante, Spain, on Saturday.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar currently has four Tour de France titles, the same number as Chris Froome, but should he secure a fifth victory at the Tour de France<\/a>, he would tie that record already held by four other champions, and add his name to the Tour’s history books alongside Miguel Indur\u00e1in, Bernard Hinault, Eddy Merckx, and Jacques Anquetil.<\/p>\n

At this year’s Tour de France, Poga\u010dar finished ahead of runner-up Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) and third-placed Florian Lipowitz (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), while rival Remco Evenepoel was forced to abandon on stage 14 on the Col du Tourmalet<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Poga\u010dar and Evenpoel had raced neck-to-neck in many of the biggest one-day races of the year. The Belgian has since transferred from Soudal-QuickStep to Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe in 2026<\/a> and recently told the media that he too is targeting the Tour de France in a co-leadership role<\/a> with his new teammate Lipowitz.<\/p>\n

Asked if he was ‘afraid’ of the Evenepoel-Lipowitz alliance for the Tour de France, Poga\u010dar said no.<\/p>\n

“I would not say that I am afraid because every year at the Tour, there is the best level of competition,” he said. “Everyone is always 100% ready for the Tour. Every team always sends their best squad there. You always know that there are going to be the best guys at the Tour, and you always need to be ready for everyone.”<\/p>\n

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UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s media day had already produced one major surprise earlier in the morning with one of Poga\u010dar’s key lieutenants, Jo\u00e3o Almeida<\/a>, announcing that he would be missing out on the Tour de France in 2026, opting to focus on the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a<\/a> instead.<\/p>\n

The decision means that Poga\u010dar will race without one of the team’s best climbers by his side as he bids for a record-equalling fifth yellow-jersey title. However, he will have the support of Isaac del Toro<\/a>, who will make his debut at the Tour de France in 2026.<\/p>\n

“I hope so, yes, maybe he can even be better,” Poga\u010dar said when asked about Del Toro’s future potential in Grand Tour racing. “He is starting his own way, he has his own way and style of riding, and I already admire him as a rider and a person. I hope that he continues in the same way that he has and that he enjoys cycling as much as he is now.”<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar had another outstanding season this year, securing 20 victories, including his fourth title at the Tour de France, a second victory at Tour of Flanders, a third victory at Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge, the overall title at Crit\u00e9rium du Dauphin\u00e9, a second consecutive road race title at the World Championship, the road race title at the European Championships, and a historic record-tying fifth victory at Il Lombardia.<\/p>\n

He confirmed his racing programme, starting with Strade Bianche before going on to race Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge, Tour de Romandie, and Tour de Suisse, all ahead of his main summer focus on the Tour de France.<\/p>\n

He told the assembled media that he is looking forward to his new racing schedule and to some of the new targets for this upcoming season.<\/p>\n

“My programme will be the Classics, like almost every year, I will start with Strade Bianche and move on to Milan-San Remo, in Italy. Then it is Flanders, Roubaix, Li\u00e8ge-Bastogne-Li\u00e8ge, Tour and then we will see. I think that is good enough. Before the Tour, I will do two races in Switzerland: Romandie and Suisse. I’m looking forward to the new challenges this year,” Poga\u010dar said.<\/p>\n

Perhaps one of the most impressive results of his spring campaign was the second place in his debut at Paris-Roubaix behind three-time winner Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck).<\/p>\n

He recently made a surprise visit to Roubaix for a 160km reconnaissance <\/a>of the Paris-Roubaix course and pav\u00e9 sectors, which was an early indication that he was already planning to return to the ‘Hell of the North’ in 2026.<\/p>\n

“It was good training. We tested some materials from the team, we got lucky with the weather and had good training, good sensations on the cobbles, and it was a nice experience,” Poga\u010dar said.<\/p>\n

Poga\u010dar said that it would be a highlight in his career to win Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix, but that he is not ‘obsessed’ with trying to win every race that he has not yet won.<\/p>\n

“If I ever win these two races, I would think – more or less – there is not much more you can do [in his cycling career],” Poga\u010dar said.<\/p>\n

“But there is always something else, no? There are a lot of one-week races I haven’t been to, the Vuelta, and there are so many things left to try to win in different scenarios. The years are going really fast, and there is not so much time to win everything that is left because there are a lot of races on the calendar; bigger races and smaller races that are super nice.<\/p>\n

“I don’t rush myself to win these races. I try to win because I haven’t won [them], but I’m not obsessed with it, as some people might think.”<\/p>\n

More to follow…<\/p>\n

\n

\"Tadej\n<\/p>\n

Tadej Poga\u010dar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar has confirmed that he is chasing a victory at Paris-Roubaix and a historic fifth Tour de…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345801,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-345800","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\/345800","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=345800"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345800\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345800"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345800"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345800"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}