Tadej Pogačar reached a new milestone last week, taking his 117th career victory with his 20th overall title in a stage race when he won the Tour de Romandie. It’s one that checks off another box on the Slovenian’s eye-watering palmarès and begs the question: what’s left?
Pogačar’s decision to target the Tour de Romandie this year was an interesting one. He has never before ridden the Swiss stage race, and chances are he never will again. The race is in trouble for next year from a financial standpoint, but now Pogačar’s name is on the roll of honour, is there any real need for him to return?
Romandie comes at an awkward point in the calendar, with Pogačar hiring a private jet to Switzerland to start the race fewer than 48 hours after winning Liège-Bastogne-Liège. It was a bit of an add-on to his Classics campaign and it doesn’t serve much purpose with a view to the Tour de France as he’ll have to wind down then ramp back up, next racing in mid-June. Pogačar adjusted his schedule this year with no stage racing in the start of the season, but that likely won’t be a new blueprint to be repeated every year.
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What’s becoming increasingly clear is Pogačar’s desire to buttress his palmarès and not simply add the same races over and over again but check off as many of cycling’s most prestigious titles before his storied career is all said and done.
“There’s still a lot of big races left, but let’s go one by one and see how far we can come,” Pogačar said after winning Romandie. So, how far is there to go?
Ticking off week-long stage races
Pogačar’s stage race selections this year also point to that narrative. As well as Romandie, he is also set to make his debut at the Tour de Suisse in June.
There is no clear ‘major stage race’ status or label as we have with the Monuments for the Classics, but beyond the three Grand Tours there is a vague hierarchy of a ‘big seven’ group of week-long races. There’s even a Wikipedia page for them. As well as Romandie and Suisse, this list of the most historic and prestigious one-week races includes Paris-Nice, Tirreno-Adriatico, Volta a Catalunya, Itzulia Basque Country, and the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes (previously known as the Dauphiné).
Interestingly, the UCI points scale designates a different seven stage races as above the other WorldTour week-long races in terms of points available: the Tour Down Under and UAE Tour are in their higher-value group, whilst Catalunya and Itzulia are in the lowest tier with the Tour de Pologne, Renewi Tour and Tour of Guangxi.
However, for the sake of this story, let’s look at the historically important ‘big seven’. After Romandie was sealed with four stage wins out of six, Pogačar now only has Suisse and Itzulia left to conquer.
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Pogačar eased to overall victory in Romandie (Image credit: Getty Images)
Pogačar won Tirreno-Adriatico in 2021 and 2022 before turning to Paris-Nice – which runs concurrently – in 2023 and winning it at the first time of asking. He won the Volta a Catalunya in 2024 en route to his Giro d’Italia success, and he won the Dauphiné on only his second appearance last year.
In terms of the missing two, that could soon become the missing one, with Pogačar a heavy favourite at next month’s Tour de Suisse. The race has been reduced to just five stages, which makes for a gentler run-in to the Tour than the eight-stage Dauphiné, and while it takes a little of the shine off the event’s prestige, it remains one of cycling’s most historically important events.
The problem for Pogačar will be Itzulia. He has only raced it twice, the first time as a neo-pro in 2019 when he was sixth overall, and lastly in 2021 when he was third behind his compatriot Primož Roglič and his future Tour de France rival Jonas Vingegaard.
The reason he has not returned since then is that he has developed a taste for the cobbles, with the Spanish race taking place in the week between the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. Pogačar raced Flanders for the first time in 2022 and has since won it three times, while Roubaix is fast replacing Milan-San Remo as his Classics-based obsession. If he really wants to win Basque, he’s going to have to make a compromise in his Monuments haul at some point or another.
What else has Pogačar got left to win?Grand Tours
When it comes to stage racing, the obvious missing link in Pogačar’s palmarès is the Vuelta a España. He has four Tour de France titles to his name, and he won the Giro d’Italia on his only participation in 2024, leaving the Vuelta to complete the Grand Tour set.
Pogačar hasn’t returned to the Vuelta since finishing third in 2019, his Grand Tour debut (Image credit: Getty Images)
Pogačar has indicated his desire to target the Vuelta but it has never been baked into his schedule and that remains the case this year. He and his team will see how he comes out of the Tour de France but the World Championships – where he could pull off a rainbow jersey three-peat – will be at the top of his late-season agenda, and given the Worlds are in Montréal, the Canadian one-day races where he has tasted success in the past will likely be favored as build-up over another exerting three weeks of racing.
In terms of the Vuelta, 2027 might provide better timing, given the earlier scheduling of the Road World Championships as of the quadrennial ‘Super Worlds’ in late August and early September. The Vuelta is therefore set to push itself back a couple of weeks to start in mid-September. While this year’s Worlds in Canada and next year’s in the French Alps both suit Pogačar, the 2028 Worlds in the UAE are set to favour the sprinters, so that could give him a clearer run at a Vuelta.
Stage races
We’ve mentioned Suisse and Itzulia, but there are plenty of other week-long races that could tempt Pogačar. In discussing his ticking off of the calendar, he mentioned the Tour Down Under, the Tour of Poland, and the ‘Tim Wellens race’, meaning the Renewi Tour, which his teammate won a couple of times back when it was known as the Eneco Tour.
The only other current race on the WorldTour calendar not mentioned so far, that he hasn’t won, would be the Tour of Guangxi.
However, it’s unlikely this list will really motivate Pogačar. Poland is a race with almost 100 years of history but Guangxi is a relatively new end-of-season affair that has WorldTour points but none of the prestige.
What’s more, the races afforded WorldTour categorisation chops and changes every few years. The Tour of Turkey was on there until 2020, for example, and Pogačar’s victory at the Tour of California in 2019 was the last before the race was discontinued. When the historical goalposts can move like this, it takes away some of the lustre.
Swipe to scroll horizontallyPogačar’s record in current WorldTour stage races
Race
Wins
Tour Down Under
❌
UAE Tour
✅✅✅
Paris-Nice
✅
Tirreno-Adriatico
✅✅
Volta a Catalunya
✅
Itzulia Basque Country
❌
Tour de Romandie
✅
Tour Avergne-Rhône-Alpes (Critérium du Dauphiné)
✅
Tour de Suisse
❌
Tour de Pologne
❌
Renewi Tour
❌
Tour of Guangxi
❌
Classics
The obvious missing block is Paris-Roubaix. Pogačar has already defied all modern-day logic to become one of the greatest Classics riders of all time as well as one of the greatest stage racers, but Roubaix stands between him and true immortality.
Only three riders have won all five Monuments: Eddy Merckx, Rik Van Looy, and Roger De Vlaeminck. Pogačar has won five editions of Il Lombardia on the trot, he now has four victories at Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and he has even made a habit of the Tour of Flanders with his third title last month. After finally cracking Milan-San Remo in March, all that remains is Roubaix, where he made an extraordinary debut with second place in 2025 and repeated that result last month.
Losing to Wout van Aert in the sprint in Roubaix underlined that for all Pogačar’s jaw-dropping ability on cobblestones that should have no place for Tour de France contenders, the Hell of the North might just prove untameable. In an era where some aspects of his dominance can seem monotonous, watching him try to tame Roubaix will be a thrill. If he pulls it off, his greatness will be further enshrined.
Pogačar has already come close twice at Roubaix, but is there a situation where he wins? (Image credit: Getty Images)
Beyond Roubaix, there’s little that stands out. He has won Strade Bianche four times and has won both Amstel Gold Race and La Flèche Wallonne (twice) to complete the Ardennes treble alongside Liège. The Clásica San Sebastián is a prestigious one that takes place on a hilly course, while he could in theory target more Flemish Classics beyond the Tour of Flanders.
However, this season’s all-killer-no-filler schedule has revealed how little of a priority the lesser Classics are for him. He raced five Classics – the four spring Monuments plus Strade Bianche – and didn’t even bother with Amstel or Flèche in the run-up to Liège. This is a man who is only really bothered about the very biggest events now.
Olympics
Pogačar skipped the 2024 Olympics in Paris due to fatigue after winning both the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France that year. He raced in Tokyo in the delayed 2021 Games and won the bronze medal as Richard Carapaz snuck away for gold.
The Los Angeles Olympics will surely form a crucial part of Pogačar’s 2028 season. After all, it might just be his last chance. By the time the 2032 Games roll around, he’ll be 33 – and he’s never given much reassurance he’s going to hang around for that long.
Records
Pogačar is on the verge of joining the fiver club at the Tour (Image credit: Getty Images)
Tour de France titles: Pogačar currently has four and this summer he’ll be out to tie the all-time record of five, which is shared between Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, Jacques Anquetil, and Miguel Indurain. If he manages that at the age of 27, he has time left to pull clear.
Tour de France stage wins: Pogačar already has a mind-bending 21 to his name. The all-time record is held by Mark Cavendish, whose long quest to surpass Eddy Merckx’s benchmark of 34 was finally achieved in 2024. Pogačar has ridden six Tours, meaning he’s averaging 3.5 stage wins per Tour. If he continues at that whack for another six Tours, by which point he’ll be 30, he’d hit 35. It’s a long shot, but he has 10 from his last two Tours, and he’s only got better since.
Monument titles: Pogačar sits second in the list of all-time Monument winners on 13, which is six behind Eddy Merckx. He has made Liège, Lombardia, and even Flanders his to lose, so it’s no great stretch to see him getting up to Merckx, although without Roubaix it would all feel a little hollow.
World road race titles: Pogačar has two in a row – no male rider has more than three, so he could become the joint record holder in Montreal in September. Eddy Merckx, Alfredo Binda, Rik Van Steenbergen, Oscar Freire, and Peter Sagan are the five men with three.