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Tadej Poga\u010dar got to watch the kids play around last week at the Dauphin\u00e9, and now The King is Back to set the serious mark for the Tour de France.<\/p>\n
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Poga\u010dar returns to racing with UAE Emirates XRG on Wednesday at the Tour de Suisse as they test the turbos before hitting blast-off at Le Tour.<\/em><\/p>\n And provided it\u2019s not all AI, footage circulating on social media suggests Pogi is extra lean and moving fast.<\/p>\n Expect a muscle-flexing power show from the super-Slovenian at the Tour de Suisse as he looks to reassert who\u2019s boss.<\/p>\n \u201cTraining has gone very well, both individually and as a team. I\u2019m arriving at the Tour de Suisse feeling strong and motivated,\u201d Poga\u010dar warned Monday in a team note.<\/p>\n Jonas Vingegaard did his own Pog-pression when he rampaged across the Giro d\u2019Italia and refound his peak Tour de France form.<\/p>\n Juan Ayuso, Matteo Jorgenson, and Paul Seixas flexed their next-gen potential in the Auvergne-Rh\u00f4nes-Alpes.<\/p>\n And while Isaac del Toro pledged his allegiance after he dominated the Dauphin\u00e9, there\u2019s no harm in Poga\u010dar delivering his domestique a timely reminder of the hierarchy.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar was an uncharacteristically subdued shade of dominant last month when he torched the Tour de Romandie.<\/p>\n Now he needs to broadcast a message: The Tour de France is his race, and his race only.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve had a good block of training done at altitude over the past few weeks,\u201d he said Monday. \u201cAfter watching our teammates racing and doing well at other races, we can\u2019t wait to put our race numbers on and put that work into action.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s time for @TamauPogi to make his @tds debut! \ud83c\udde8\ud83c\udded\ud83e\udd29<\/p>\n Raced across five days from Wednesday to Sunday, this year\u2019s instalment is the 89th edition of the historic race. <\/p>\n Our squad is as follows \u2935\ufe0f<\/p>\n \ud83c\udde6\ud83c\uddf9 @gro_felix \u2014 @UAE-TeamEmirates (@TeamEmiratesUAE) June 15, 2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n But the Tour de Suisse isn\u2019t only a tune-up for King Pog.<\/p>\n It\u2019s one of the few WorldTour stage races not yet on the palmar\u00e9s of a 27-year-old outlier who\u2019s already thinking about his legacy.<\/p>\n These twin motivations mean UAE Emirates-XRG is sending a Tour de France-caliber roster to support Poga\u010dar in Switzerland.<\/p>\n Del Toro and Pavel Sivakov are the only riders missing from UAE\u2019s expected Tour de France crew.<\/p>\n Financial constraints have shrunk this year\u2019s Tour de Suisse to just five days, running June 17-21.<\/p>\n The race will be won across a sprint stage, two hilly stages, a 24km ITT, and an extra-hard Alpine finale.<\/p>\n It should be easy picking for Poga\u010dar.<\/p>\n He won\u2019t need to worry about going too deep in a race this short.<\/p>\n Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d, Richard Carapaz, and Lenny Martinez are his only clear challengers for GC after so many decided to finesse their Tour de France form last week in the Dauphin\u00e9.<\/p>\n Mathieu van der Poel and Tom Pidcock will test Poga\u010dar\u2019s punch through the opening hilly stages in a rematch from the spring monuments.<\/p>\n A handful of stage wins and the overall seems an inevitability for Poga\u010dar in his Tour de Suisse debut.<\/p>\n The biggest intrigue might be in how<\/em> he does it.<\/p>\n The world champion admitted he was a touch overweight and off his best in April when he trounced the Tour de Romandie while riding zone 2.<\/p>\n Spy shots from Poga\u010dar\u2019s training camp on Sierra Nevada suggest he\u2019ll parachute into Switzerland as a rider reborn.<\/p>\n Images from Spain and some\u00a0timely rider gossip indicate he\u2019s metamorphosed from the meaty monument rider who sparred with Van der Poel and Wout van Aert all spring.<\/p>\n For Poga\u010dar, victory this week at the Tour de Suisse would bring a near-perfect season to an equally perfect peak before he strives to join the Tour de France five-time winner club in July.<\/p>\n Anything less than perfection will be an upset.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/div>\n <\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/pogacar-message-tour-de-france\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2274294752.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated June 15, 2026 07:05AM Tadej Poga\u010dar got to watch the kids play around last week at the Dauphin\u00e9, and now The King is Back to set the serious mark for the Tour de France. Poga\u010dar returns to racing with UAE Emirates XRG on Wednesday at the Tour de Suisse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,71],"class_list":["post-1992099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-velo-outsideonline-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1992099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1992099\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1992099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1992099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1992099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Poga\u010dar and his quest to complete cycling<\/h2>\n
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\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\uddf8 @BrandonMcNult
\ud83c\uddea\ud83c\udde8 @NarvaezJho
\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddee @DomenNovak
\ud83c\uddf8\ud83c\uddee @TamauPogi\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/19oKLXb5bY<\/p>\nPoga\u010dar to face-off with Van der Poel, Pidcock, Rogli\u010d in 5-day Suisse<\/h2>\n
![\"Tour](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Screenshot-2026-06-15-at-11.18.26-1200x398.png?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
Victory: How, not if?<\/h2>\n
![\"Poga\u010dar](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/GettyImages-2273674869.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")