{"id":198628,"date":"2025-10-08T22:50:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T22:50:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198628\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T22:50:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T22:50:11","slug":"pogacar-and-vingegaard-set-for-head-to-head-showdown-in-andorra","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/198628\/","title":{"rendered":"Poga\u010dar and Vingegaard set for head-to-head \u2018showdown\u2019 in Andorra"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tadej Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard are set to face off in a fresh, high-profile event this month with a twist: no team support, no peloton, just four of the sport\u2019s elite riders battling it out. Sort of.<\/p>\n

The first-ever Andorra Cycling Masters<\/a> goes down on Oct. 19 will also feature Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and Isaac del Torro in a compact, intense \u2018competition.\u2019<\/p>\n

Now, in theory, given that the season is over for most of these riders\u2026it\u2019s not really a race, (it\u2019s not UCI-sanctioned, for one) but an exhibition of sorts similar to the post-Tour de France crits. There, the \u201craces\u201d have a pre-determined winner and the lads just cruise around on some city circuits and some climber will outsprint everyone. The difference is, the first \u201cstage\u201d ain\u2019t exactly a cake walk.<\/p>\n

Hilly TT to kick things off<\/p>\n

The event kicks off with an 8-km uphill time trial on the Coll de la Gallina. Then, there\u2019s a 32-km multi-lap urban circuit weaving through Andorra la Vella and Escaldes-Engordany. Since it\u2019s only four riders, the organizers are saying it will strip away team tactics and allow fans to see pure, head-to-head racing, or something.<\/p>\n

Tadej Poga\u010dar totally made a fan\u2019s day at the Singapore criterium<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Pogi and Vingegaard have had stellar seasons, each taking a Grand Tour. Del Toro almost took one\u2013finishing second at the Giro d\u2019Italia. Still, it\u2019s been a long year for the first two, and they have both said they looked forward to a break. However, it\u2019s almost certain that they are getting a pretty large appearance fee for this little Andorran adventure. And everybody likes some extra milk money.<\/p>\n

Organizers promise that the event will deliver more than just racing, with exclusive behind-the-scenes footage capturing the riders in action. The material will later be compiled into a documentary.<\/p>\n

Still, even if there\u2019s a bit of acting\u2013especially in the city circuits\u2013it might fill the gap for fans who are in withdrawal after the last big race of the year finishes on Saturday, Il Lombardia<\/a>. Good news though if you need a fix\u2013the European \u2018cross season has begun and you can catch reports every weekend here on Canadian Cycling Magazine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tadej Poga\u010dar and Jonas Vingegaard are set to face off in a fresh, high-profile event this month with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":86407,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[98200,49,48,635,5900,82,1422],"class_list":["post-198628","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-andorra-cycling-masters","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198628","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198628"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198628\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198628"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198628"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198628"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}