'Pogacar has never been there' - Contador questions Visma's 'second Grand Tour' theory

Vingegaard left Italy on Sunday with the maglia rosa, five stage wins and a place among the elite group of riders to have won all three Grand Tours. The Dane added the Giro d’Italia to his Tour de France titles of 2022 and 2023 and his Vuelta a España victory of 2025, with Felix Gall, Jai Hindley and Thymen Arensman unable to seriously threaten him across the three weeks.

Before sealing his Giro victory, Visma | Lease a Bike sports director Marc Reef explained why the team had backed Vingegaard’s decision to take on the Giro and Tour double.

“He was looking for new motivation and a new trigger,” Reef said to Domestique. “And we were really behind that idea. Last year when Jonas did the Tour and the Vuelta, we saw that his level was improving slightly in the second Grand Tour, so that was an extra reason to go for it this year.”

Speaking on Eurosport, Contador said that claim had stayed with him.

“That theory they have in the team, which surprised me because of how emphatically the director spoke about it, is that in the second Grand Tour he always goes better,” Contador said. “In the second Grand Tour, so far, Pogačar has never been there. Now we’ll see when he coincides with Pogačar, when he coincides with Seixas, and we’ll see how he develops.”

Vingegaard’s previous double Grand Tour seasons have come with Pogačar absent from the second race. The 2025 Vuelta, where Vingegaard claimed his first Spanish Grand Tour title ahead of João Almeida and Tom Pidcock, was raced without the Slovenian on the start line.

The same was true of the 2023 Vuelta, where Visma dominated with Sepp Kuss, Vingegaard and Primož Roglič completing an all Visma podium, again without Pogačar in the race. 

Those campaigns proved Vingegaard’s ability to compete deep into a season, but they did not answer the question that will define this summer: whether he can back up one Grand Tour victory with another when Pogačar is waiting at the Tour.

Vingegaard’s 2026 season has otherwise been close to perfect. The Dane won Paris-Nice in March, the Volta a Catalunya later that month and then the Giro d’Italia in May. Three weeks of racing in Italy added five stage wins to his season tally, making him the rider with the most victories in 2026.

But if the Giro confirmed Vingegaard’s return to his highest level, the Tour will reveal whether that level is enough against Pogačar. The Slovenian has dominated the past two editions, beating Vingegaard by 6:17 in 2024 and by 4:24 in 2025. Vingegaard’s Giro form suggests he is again close to the rider he was before his crash at Itzulia Basque Country in April 2024, but Pogačar has continued to raise the bar.

That is why Pogačar will start the 2026 Tour as the favourite, with Vingegaard lining up as his main challenger when the race begins in Barcelona on 4 July and finishes on 26 July. The Dane has beaten Pogačar twice at the Tour, in 2022 and 2023, but never before after racing the Giro in the same season.

Whether his Giro-Tour double can deliver the same result is now the question waiting to be answered.