'No real surprises' – Visma know Tour route suits this Pogacar as much as Vingegaard

In 2022 and 2023, Vingegaard forged his Tour victories by outlasting Pogacar in the third week and on the most demanding mountain stages. In that light, the 2026 Tour’s grand finale at Alpe d’Huez will have caught Vingegaard’s eye, but this version of Pogacar no longer seems vulnerable to the high altitude and the rigours of the third week.

Vingegaard has placed a distant second to his rival in each of the past two editions, and Pogacar will line up next July as the favourite to claim a record-equalling fifth Tour victory. 

Speaking to Domestique after the presentation of the 2026 Tour on Thursday, Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Grischa Niermann acknowledged that the route suits Pogacar just as much as Vingegaard.

“Already last year, I said it was a good route for Jonas, but that didn’t mean it was not a good route for Pogacar, and we can say the same this year,” Niermann told Domestique. “I think when we look at Jonas’ qualities, what you want to see is a lot of very hard and steep mountaintop finishes, which we probably don’t have apart from the Col de Sarenne on stage 20.

“But on the other hand, it’s not applicable anymore to say that that a long and hard mountaintop finish doesn’t suit Tadej. In the end, these guys are so complete that they can compete on every terrain. There’s a new summit finish in the Pyrenees but it’s an 18km, 3.5% climb, so it will be hard to make the difference there and then it’s no secret that Tadej is a lot more explosive than Jonas when it comes down to a sprint or something.”

While the early foray into the Pyrenees draws the eye, the most demanding stages of the race come in the second half of the race, and the toughest day of all comes on the final weekend with stage 20 to Alpe d’Huez by way of the Col de Sarenne.

“I'm pretty neutral on it, I would say,” Niermann said. “I think it’s a very hard end of the Tour de France. It’s backloaded from stage 13 onwards, more or less, with the Jura and the Alps. Stage 20 will certainly be the queen stage with the Croix de Fer, the Télégraphe, the Galibier and the Sarenne, which I don’t know yet, but it will certainly be the hardest day.

“Overall, it’s not like I’m jumping in the air because it’s so nice and spectacular or something I’ve never seen before. But it’s like this, and it will be very hard, like always.”

While his boss Richard Plugge voiced reservations, Niermann was enthusiastic about the opening 19km team time trial in Barcelona, where the novel format will see riders’ times taken individually atop Montjuic. It will be a surprise if Pogacar and Vingegaard aren’t already occupying the top two positions on GC there, but they will dust off their time trial bikes just once more on the Tour, for the 26km test to Thonon-les-Bains on stage 16.

“If I was Remco or if I was Bora, I would not be so happy with just that one 26k time trial,” Niermann said. “But for us, it’s different, because it’s not that we look to Jonas to take a lot of time in the time trials from Tadej. In any case, it’s not so surprising – in the last 20 years, I don’t know if the Tour de France has had a TTT and then two individual time trials.”

Niermann wouldn’t be drawn on whether the new distribution of intermediate sprints would persuade Wout van Aert to pursue the green jersey he won back in 2022, noting simply that it was too soon to say. 

“To be honest, we haven’t even decided yet if Jonas goes to the Tour,” he laughed, and that begs an obvious question. How seriously is Vingegaard considering a Giro d’Italia debut in 2026 given his recent Vuelta a España triumph?

“We’re now in the process of doing all the evaluations,” Niermann said. “It’s no secret that Jonas said he could imagine doing both, and that’s certainly something we are looking into now, but there’s no decision taken yet. Up to now, we don’t know anything at all about the parcours of the Giro, so it’s hard to take a decision.

“I think it’s no secret that it is certainly on his list that he would really like to win all three Grand Tours in his career, so it will happen somewhere – but I cannot guarantee you if it happens next year.”

Whatever about the Giro in May, Vingegaard will certainly be at the Tour in July, and the challenges of this route are strikingly similar to recent seasons. The only big change Niermann envisages is specific preparation for that opener in Barcelona on July 4.

“The team time trial, of course, changes things a bit,” he said. “You would like to have the team together to do some training, or in the best case, to do a race together with a team time trial. That’s something we will have to think about. But for the rest, I don’t think there’s any real surprises in this route.”