Pogacar begins Tour de France countdown with Sierra Nevada altitude camp

While the Giro d’Italia heads for the heights on the Blockhaus on Friday, Tadej Pogačar formally begins his preparation for the Tour de France with the first day of his May altitude camp at Sierra Nevada.

It will be one of two spells at altitude for the defending champion before the main rendezvous in July. After training at Sierra Nevada between now and his debut at the Tour de Suisse (June 17-21), Pogačar will spend a shorter spell at Isola 2000 in late June, just as he did before his last two Tour victories. 

“He’s going to do altitude training starting from tomorrow [Friday] at Sierra Nevada to prepare for the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France,” UAE Team Emirates-XRG sports manager Joxean Matxin Fernandez told Domestique on Thursday. “After Suisse, he’ll go to altitude again at Isola 2000.”

In recent seasons, Pogačar has given the distinct impression that riding – and winning – the Tour is an obligation rather than a passion project, at least in comparison with his more obvious enthusiasm for the biggest one-day races.

And so when UAE sat down with Pogačar to draw up his 2026 schedule, they indulged his desire to try to complete a full set of Monument victories. Astonishingly, the Slovenian eschewed stage races altogether in the opening months of the season, limiting himself to five outings in one-day races before he eventually lined up at the Tour de Romandie at the end of April.

“We made a programme tailored to Tadej and I think the customisation was good in the sense that he focused on one-day racing to begin with, and he ended that cycle with Romandie as an adaptation to the second cycle of his season, which is around the Tour de France,” Matxin said.

Pogačar being Pogačar, the novel programme has proven to be a resounding success. He won four of his five spring Classics, claiming Strade Bianche, Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

By his own admission, Pogačar was a couple of kilogrammes above his Grand Tour weight when he lined up in Romandie, but he didn’t seem to be unduly slowed by the extra muscle he had amassed for his Classics campaign, winning four stages and the overall title.

“Tadej came to Romandie off the back of a preparation that was designed more for the Classics, but he came in with the right mentality, and it went very well,” said Matxin.

Even by Pogačar’s outlandish standards, it was quite a flex to dominate a mountainous WorldTour stage race immediately off the back of a spring campaign where Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix were his primary objectives. 

Above all, it’s a sobering thought for Pogačar’s Tour rivals that his Romandie triumph came before he had even started to adapt his training towards the demands of stage racing. So far in 2026, he has nine victories from 11 days of racing.

“He’s the best rider in the world,” Matxin smiled. “With Tadej, it’s easier to do things like that, because apart from being the best rider in the world, I think he’s also one of the most versatile riders in the world. He’s the favourite in every race he does, even in races that are very difficult for him, like Roubaix or Flanders. He steps out of his comfort zone and dives right in.”

The question of whether Pogačar loves the Tour de France or not is almost moot at this point; the key for UAE is that he knows what it takes to win it. It might not inspire him quite like those jousts on the cobbles, but Pogačar understands the importance of these next weeks at Sierra Nevada. The countdown to the Grand Départ on July 4 has formally begun.