Tadej Poga\u010dar is confirmed for the 2026 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
After much speculation, UAE Emirates-XRG revealed Monday morning that the 27-year-old will double back from his fifth Tour de France victory to line up for the Spanish tour on August 22.<\/p>\n
Poga\u010dar first burst onto the grand tour scene in 2019 when he debuted at the Vuelta as a baby-faced phenom. Then only 20, he won three stages, the young rider\u2019s jersey, and placed third overall.<\/p>\n
He\u2019ll return to the race for the first time this summer with dramatically higher ambitions.<\/p>\n
The Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a is one of the few races the Slovenian super-cyclist needs to check off his to-do list as he stampedes through pro cycling with the ambition to win everything.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n He\u2019ll follow Jonas Vingegaard in completing \u201cthe grand tour grand slam\u201d if he adds the red jersey to his palmar\u00e8s<\/em> on September 13.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m excited to say I\u2019m going back to La Vuelta. It was my first ever grand tour back in 2019 and an amazing experience,\u201d Poga\u010dar said Monday in a team note. \u201cSpain is a country I love to visit and race in and I think the time is right to go back.<\/p>\n \u201cThe motivation is high to finish off the year in a good way and the Vuelta will be a big target. The team is strong, and we hope to do good things.\u201d<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar is expected to back up the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a with his road world title defense in Montr\u00e9al in September.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar is expected to face off against four-time Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a champion Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d in the race for the red jersey.<\/p>\n Felix Gall, Mattias Skjelmose and Cian Uijtdebroeks are other key GC names on the rumored startlist. None of Remco Evenepoel, Jonas Vingegaard, or Paul Seixas are expected to be doubling the recent Tour de France with three weeks in Spain.<\/p>\n After ruling the Tour de France with an iron fist and winning a record-equalling fifth yellow jersey, Poga\u010dar will line up for the Monaco gran salida<\/em> later this month as super-favorite.<\/p>\n In fact, Pog\u010dar\u2019s most serious opposition might be his own teammate Jo\u00e3o Almeida. The Portuguese star was also confirmed for the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a by team UAE on Monday.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar and Almeida will be joined by Jay Vine, Pavel Sivakov, Pablo Torres, Domen Novak, Ivo Oliveira, and USA\u2019s Kevin Vermaerke. The 20-year-old phenom Torres is touted to be a new Poga\u010dar in the making.<\/p>\n The confirmation on Monday ends years of speculation over when Poga\u010dar will return to the Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n It\u2019s been in the cards since race organizers went on bended knee by revealing Monaco \u2013 Poga\u010dar\u2019s home-from-home \u2013 as the host of the race\u2019s foreign start for 2026.<\/p>\n Poga\u010dar was set to race the Vuelta last summer after the Tour de France, but fatigue and a knee injury thwarted his plans.<\/p>\n There doesn\u2019t seem to be any stopping him this time around.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/pogacar-confirmed-for-2026-vuelta-a-espana\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/Z8C_9143-2.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated August 3, 2026 03:51AM Tadej Poga\u010dar is confirmed for the 2026 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. After much speculation, UAE Emirates-XRG revealed Monday morning that the 27-year-old will double back from his fifth Tour de France victory to line up for the Spanish tour on August 22. Poga\u010dar first burst onto […]<\/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-2075342","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\/2075342","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=2075342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2075342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2075342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2075342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2075342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Back to where it all began for Poga\u010dar<\/h2>\n
![\"Poga\u010dar](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1174652991.jpg?width=2048&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")