Tadej this, Tadej that \u2026 it\u2019s like Mr. Poga\u010dar is the only rider scheduled to start the 2026 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n
The Slovenian attention-sucker is stealing all<\/em> the headlines ahead of this year\u2019s race.<\/p>\n And rightly so. The five-time Tour de France winner is so GOATed he could probably win 10 stages and three classification jerseys if he wants to.<\/p>\n But there\u2019s plenty more to watch out for at this Vuelta than the world No. 1.<\/p>\n Here are five storylines and hot takes we\u2019re hyped to see playing out in the next month.<\/p>\n Bike races are always better when Wout van Aert is there. If he\u2019s fit, the Belgian baller always leaves his mark.<\/p>\n The only thing better than a bike race with Wout? A bike race with Wout and<\/em> his blueprint rider, Mads Pedersen.<\/p>\n Wout vs. Mads will be the rivalry of the race. The reigning Paris-Roubaix champion vs. the reigning Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a and Tour de France green jersey?<\/p>\n I\u2019ll certainly take that over Poga\u010dar vs. a gang of climbers who are already resigned to second-place.<\/p>\n Van Aert and Pedersen will light up the seven tough-guy sprint stages scattered through the Vuelta. Given the state of the race\u2019s sprint field, they\u2019ll likely be in the mix for the few mass finals and overall green jersey, too.<\/p>\n On the sporting side, it\u2019s a match-up to salivate over.<\/p>\n And better still, you can be sure that a little spice will flavor their inevitable rivalry. Van Aert and Pedersen are two of the big characters in a peloton that\u2019s been brainwashed by media training.<\/p>\n And for Van Aert, this Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a is extra significant. Being forced to the sidelines ahead of the Tour de France this summer has made the man ravenous. Plus, Wout has unfinished business with La Vuelta<\/em> \u2014 the horrific knee injury he sustained when he crashed out of his last go at the race haunted him all through the following spring.<\/p>\n Keep a close eye on the kindergarten class of this year\u2019s Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s race is loaded with riders we\u2019ll be talking about through the 2030s.<\/p>\n The Vuelta\u2019s 20-year-old rookie trio of Jakob Omrzel (Bahrain-Victorious), Jarno Widar (Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9) and Pablo Torres (UAE Emirates XRG) would be the talk of the transfer market if 19-year-old phenom Paul Seixas wasn\u2019t hogging all the attention.<\/p>\n Omrezel won last year\u2019s Baby Giro and backed it up in 2026 with top-10s overall at the Tour of the Alps, Tour de Hongrie, and Tour of Slovenia. Of course, being Slovenian, he\u2019s already been labeled \u201cthe next Poga\u010dar\u201d \u2014 no pressure.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Widar dominated the junior and U23 ranks so hard he\u2019s been made the leader of Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9\u2019s hopes at the 2026 Vuelta. OK, so the beleaguered Belgian team isn\u2019t exactly the biggest bunch of ballers in the race, but you get the point. Widar is very good. In fact, only Seixas could stop the Belgian from winning the Tour de l\u2019Avenir last summer.<\/p>\n And Torres? He\u2019s one of the purest climbers in the peloton. UAE Emirates-XRG has so much faith in the 2024 Tour de l\u2019Avenir runner-up it signed him at age 19 and pinned him down through 2030.<\/p>\n Any or all of these three could win a stage, hit the overall top-10, or both.<\/p>\n Also familiarize yourselves with 21-year-old J\u00f8rgen Nordhagen (Visma-Lease a Bike), 22-year-old Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes revelation Luke Tuckwell (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe), and that Brit sprinter kid, Matthew Brennan (also Visma). We\u2019ll be talking about them for the next decade, we bet.<\/p>\n Speaking of Brennan \u2026 more on him later.<\/p>\n The Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a was playing with fire when it designed its 2026 parcours<\/em>. Literally, and metaphorically.<\/p>\n The race is being touted as \u201cthe hardest Vuelta in history\u201d given its insane 58,000m of altitude gain. It\u2019s also likely to be the hottest.<\/p>\n More than half the race plays out in the deep south of one of the hottest countries in western Europe. The final week is almost entirely on the Andalucian coast, just a metaphorical stone\u2019s throw away from Africa.<\/p>\n After a summer of unprecedented heat, this Vuelta will be hellish. Long-range forecasts in the region are calling for a clean streak of 30-35\u00b0C heat and wall-to-wall sun.<\/p>\n Is this the most ridiculously designed Vuelta ever? Sort of.<\/p>\n But after the race packed itself into northern Spain in 2025, officials no doubt felt indebted to the neglected south.<\/p>\n Of course, race organizer Javier Guill\u00e9n insisted he\u2019s not heading south as a token gesture, or to escape the pro-Palestine protest groups that crippled last year\u2019s race.<\/p>\n However, Guill\u00e9n might have inadvertently pointed himself toward a different type of protest by heading south. One from within.<\/p>\n It would be no surprise if several stages are canceled, re-routed, or hit by rider protests due to extreme heat. In fact, it would be more of a shock if the race runs 100 percent smooth.<\/p>\n Don\u2019t laugh, but a bunch sprinter might actually bring some extra stoke to this Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a.<\/p>\n Matthew Brennan \u2014 the boyish Brit once hailed \u201cthe next Cav or Wout\u201d \u2014 makes his long-awaited grand tour debut this month.<\/p>\n And the 21-year-old is not going to be collecting bottles for his Visma-Lease a Bike superteam.<\/p>\n Brennan has been assigned a royal leadout train in Wout van Aert and Christophe Laporte, and he\u2019s got the watts to crush the \u201ceasier\u201d sprint stages of La Vuelta<\/em>.<\/p>\n Jordi Meeus \u2014 the only established speedster on the start list \u2014 will have his work cut out following one of the most explosive fast finishes of the 2020s.<\/p>\n It\u2019s rare to get excited about sprinters in a modern peloton dominated by Pogi and MVDP.<\/p>\n But Brennan is from a different breed. When he wins, there\u2019s a chance he\u2019s done something ridiculous to make it happen.<\/p>\n Just scroll through the replays splattered all over social media of his incredible victories last year in Catalunya and Poland. Brennan can make it look like he\u2019s playing bike racing on easy mode.<\/p>\n Brennan\u2019s grand tour debut has felt a long time coming. He raked in 19 wins in less than two years but never saw his chances in a Visma-Lease a Bike team obsessed with GC \u2014 until now.<\/p>\n That means Brennan will want to impress this summer. Given his track record, it\u2019s hard to see him doing anything less.<\/p>\n King Rogla returns to his kingdom this weekend. The four-time Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a champion Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d is back at the race that built his career for the first time since 2024.<\/p>\n But this won\u2019t be a Vuelta that Rogli\u010d is used to.<\/p>\n The 36-year-old is uncertain of his form and of his future as he rides into the 2026 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. He\u2019s certainly not a top-tier favorite like he was the last five times he started the race.<\/p>\n Who knows, this Vuelta could even be the last grand tour of Rogli\u010d\u2019s blockbuster career unless Lotto-Intermarch\u00e9 comes good on the rumors and hands him a rescue package.<\/p>\n Rogla is hedging his bets over how things will play out for him in the next month. His Vuelta preparation was whacked when a motorist struck him while he was out training, which doesn\u2019t bode well given his lack of consistency all season.<\/p>\n Our take?<\/p>\n Rogli\u010d will evaporate out of the GC fight, early. This is Rog. Disaster is only ever a heartbeat away.<\/p>\n But he won\u2019t go down quietly. \u201cNo risk, no glory<\/em>,\u201d remember?<\/p>\n Just look at what Rogli\u010d did last year at the Tour de France after he slid out of contention.<\/p>\n His baffling \u201cHail Mary\u201d attack on stage 19 in the Alps was aura-farming at its finest. He broke away early, left his teammate Florian Lipowitz stranded, and then bonked out the back.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was all or nothing for me today \u2026 At least I was on TV,\u201d Rogli\u010d said after the stage.<\/p>\n More of this, please, Primo\u017e. If you cannot win, then entertain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n [analyse_source url=”https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/road\/road-racing\/vuelta-a-espana\/van-aert-pogacar-vuelta-a-espana\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/CAuldPhoto-2024-LaVuelta-Stage3-1683-e1787306895387.jpg”] Jim Cotton Updated August 21, 2026 10:48AM Tadej this, Tadej that \u2026 it\u2019s like Mr. Poga\u010dar is the only rider scheduled to start the 2026 Vuelta a Espa\u00f1a. The Slovenian attention-sucker is stealing all the headlines ahead of this year\u2019s race. And rightly so. The five-time Tour de France winner is so […]<\/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-2106683","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\/2106683","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=2106683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2106683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2106683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2106683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2106683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}1. Wout van Aert vs. Mads Pedersen will be the best bit of the race<\/h2>\n
![\"Pedersen](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/cyclingimages-2025-GIRO-Stage-13-821957-1200x800.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
2. All hail \u2018The Next Seixas\u2019?<\/h2>\n
3. Stages will be canceled, rerouted, or protested due to extreme heat<\/h2>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Vuelta-Espana-Stage-04-Harry-Talbot-1956-1200x801.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")
4. Matthew Brennan will go bunch sprint beast mode<\/h2>\n
5. Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d will leave the Vuelta in a blaze of glory<\/h2>\n
![](\"https:\/\/velo-cdn.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/20240908_1843_Stage-21-Vuelta-Joris-Knapen-Jozza_Cyclingpics-_JKN_06364-1200x800.jpg?width=3840&auto=webp&quality=75&fit=cover\")