{"id":364039,"date":"2026-01-11T07:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T07:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/364039\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T07:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T07:12:08","slug":"where-and-when-jonas-vingegaard-and-tadej-pogacar-could-clash-in-2026-four-races-that-could-shape-their-rivalry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/364039\/","title":{"rendered":"Where and when Jonas Vingegaard and Tadej Pogacar could clash in 2026 \u2013 four races that could shape their rivalry"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

If you analyse the possible paths of the Dane, the Visma leader could come face to face with Pogacar as many as four times, all the way through to October.<\/p>\n

Different paths in the first half of the seasonWe have to start from the assumption that Jonas Vingegaard<\/a>, according to reports in his home country, has already decided that he will make his debut at the Giro d\u2019Italia, and of course, he will also ride the Tour de France<\/a>. That means the first half of his season, up to the Grande Boucle, will look very different from that of Tadej Pogacar<\/a>, who will not ride the Corsa Rosa.Therefore, in theory, the first duel between the two superstars of cycling will have to be the main course of the season: the 2026 Tour de France<\/a>. If nothing goes wrong, such as an injury from a crash for either of them, Vingegaard and Pogacar will contest the sixth chapter of their rivalry in the greatest race in the world.<\/p>\n

Their head-to-head currently looks like this:<\/p>\n

Tour de France 2021: overall victory for Tadej Pogacar
\nTour de France 2022: overall victory for Jonas Vingegaard
\nTour de France 2023: overall victory for Jonas Vingegaard
\nTour de France 2024: overall victory for Tadej Pogacar
\nTour de France 2025: overall victory for Tadej Pogacar
\nIn addition, Pogacar also has the 2020 Tour de France<\/a> on his palmares, although that one he won against Primoz Roglic.The first meeting of 2026 between Pogacar and Vingegaard will come at the Tour de France<\/a>.After the Tour, the calendar opens upAfter the 2026 Tour de France<\/a>, the possibilities really start to multiply. Logic suggests that Pogacar will skip the Vuelta a Espana once again. The reason is very simple: the World Championships<\/a> in Montreal suit his racing style perfectly. In fact, the race for the rainbow jersey will have the same course as the GP Montreal, which is held every year on the WorldTour.<\/p>\n

And GP Montreal is a race that Pogacar has dominated for almost five years. The Slovenian won the 2022 and 2024 editions, and in 2025 he gifted the victory to his team-mate Brandon McNulty, even though he could easily have taken it himself. That is why going for a third consecutive world title will be another of the big objectives for the UAE rider.<\/p>\n

This is where the second challenge in which he and Vingegaard could face each other might come. The Dane already made his debut for Denmark in 2025 by riding the European Championships<\/a> as his first taste of major one-day races. His intention is to improve in the classics, and what better stage than a World Championship in Canada designed for climbers and puncheurs.European Championships in Pogacar\u2019s backyardAfter the Worlds, it is also very likely that Tadej Pogacar<\/a> will return to the European Championships<\/a>. The exact course is still unknown, only that it will take place on 7 October and that it will be in Slovenia. An edition in his home country, and on top of that as defending champion after winning the title in 2025. A situation like that hardly ever comes around, and the double world champion will not waste it.For the same reasons that make his participation in the Worlds likely, Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> could also go to the Europeans. But there are more reasons to believe it. The first has to do with his desire for redemption after his 2025 race, when the Dane was dropped from the peloton more than 100 kilometres from the finish, before the fight had even really begun.\"TadejPogacar_JonasVingegaard\"\/<\/p>\n

Vingegaard and Pogacar’s rivalry has defined the Tour de France in the 2020s<\/p>\n

Il Lombardia as the final possible showdownThe second reason, which links to the final race in which the two could meet, is the idea that the European Championships<\/a> could help Vingegaard arrive with good legs for the final Monument of the year: Il Lombardia<\/a> 2026.Although he has never ridden a Monument as a favourite, the Race of the Falling Leaves is the one Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> has started most often, three times in total (2020, 2021 and 2022), along with Liege-Bastogne-Liege. If the Visma rider wants to improve in one-day races, he will have to start treating these Monuments as real targets.The four races where they could meet in 2026So, based on all of this, the four possible races in which Jonas Vingegaard<\/a> and Tadej Pogacar<\/a> could face each other in 2026 are:Tour de France
\nWorld Championships
\nEuropean Championships
\nIl Lombardia
\nFrom a sporting point of view, if this is confirmed it would be very big news. Tadej Pogacar<\/a> is dominating almost everything. If it were not for Mathieu van der Poel, who has beaten him at Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix, the Slovenian would practically have a complete palmares. But if Vingegaard takes a step forward and improves in the classics, the spectacle will be even more exciting and more evenly matched.All that remains is for Team Visma | Lease a Bike<\/a> to start seeing more clearly the value of their star looking beyond the Tour de France<\/a>. In the end, the Grande Boucle is the race that generates the most sponsors and money, and it is only logical that the Dutch team want their best rider to focus on it. But Pogacar is getting stronger and stronger, and Vingegaard is needed in more places as his great rival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" If you analyse the possible paths of the Dane, the Visma leader could come face to face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":364040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,109416,83341,9046,101,8782,36242,6549,12183,56,54,55,49085],"class_list":["post-364039","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-european-championships","tag-il-lombardia","tag-jonas-vingegaard","tag-sports","tag-tadej-pogacar","tag-team-visma-lease-a-bike","tag-tour-de-france","tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom","tag-world-championships"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/364040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}