Pogacar reportedly to skip Vuelta a España as Almeida and Ayuso set for co-leadership

After winning a fourth Tour de France on Sunday after stage 21 in a rain-soaked Paris, the big question on everyone's lips was if the World Champion would race the Vuelta a España, which starts in Turin, Italy on 23 August.

However, according to reports from AS Tadej Pogačar is set to skip the Vuelta a España while João Almeida and Juan Ayuso will co-lead the UAE Team Emirates-XRG squad at the Spanish Grand Tour. There has been no official confirmation yet from UAE Team Emirates-XRG about the decision as of Monday Morning after the Tour de France. 

Throughout the Tour de France, Pogačar has remained non-committal about a potential appearance at the Spanish Grand Tour, and after stage 20 to Pontarlier, he stated, “I said on, I don’t know which day, that we will decide a couple of days after the Tour when everything is calm and heads are clear, then we make decisions for the next races,” Pogačar said.

“It’s going to be tough to decide. Of course, I would like to go to the Vuelta. Every year I do the Tour, and I would like to do the Vuelta one day also, so we will see.”

After being declared champion on Sunday in Paris, Pogačar issued the same rhetoric. "Now it's time to celebrate, everybody thinks differently about how they want to celebrate, I want to celebrate with peace this week, and have nice weather, not like here now, and just to enjoy some quiet days at home," he said. 

"Let's take one week easy now, I want to enjoy some summer days, we were training some much for heat adaptation and heat acclimatisation and in the end the Tour was not so hot, so I want some hot days now but without suffering on the bike, so let's take a week off and we'll see from then on," Pogačar added. 

Pogačar has only raced the Vuelta once before in his career, his debut grand tour, back in 2019, before he was even a Tour de France champion. Back then, Pogačar wasn’t the cycling Goliath that he is now, but instead a very exciting neo-pro who lit the Spanish Grand Tour up, winning three stages and finishing 3rd on GC behind Primož Roglič in his debut at the race. However, based on the reports from AS, it looks as though we will have to wait at least one more year for the World Champion to return to the Vuelta.

When asked about his goals for the remainder of the season after securing his fourth Tour title in his official post-race press conference in Paris, Pogačar also indicated his focus may lie elsewhere than the Spanish Grand Tour, "Obviously it's not a goal to win 5 Tours, right now I have no clear goals, I mean, maybe World Championships this year, and Lombardy I would said, but no clear other goals. So I will say I'll enjoy the moment and think about the next goals quite soon."

“Right now I’m not thinking about any other race, I just want to go back to my team bus and my teammates and enjoy the evening together, it’s getting late and I don’t want to think about other races right now, and we can talk about the Giro, Vuelta in the future.”

After an attritional Tour de France that looks to have taken its toll on Pogačar both physically and mentally, it seems that the Slovenian will turn his attention to defending his rainbow jersey in Rwanda in September, but only after a well-earned rest first. 

The World Champion gave an honest and interesting insight when he was asked about whether he was concerned about burnout in the future. 

“I’m at this point of my career, if I do have burnout, it’s the career, and I’ll be happy with what I have achieved,” Pogačar said.  “No, but to be serious, burnouts happen in sports, in a lot of sports, mental burnout, physical burnout, we do train a lot, I think cyclists, we are a bit too obsessed with training and we always try our best, everybody wants to train more and more, and sometimes you see with riders, they have fatigue too early in the season, and then the team needs you to race, race and race, and then you just keep going in this circle and never recover and then you come to October and finally a break, but in December you are starting all over again."

“Burnouts happen all the time, it can happen to me as well for sure,” he added.

Pogačar's historic 2024 season, where he became the third male rider to achieve the Triple Crown of cycling alongside Eddy Merckx in 1974 and Stephen Roche in 1987, winning the Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Road Race World Championships, was the only season in his career so far that he raced two grand tours in a calendar year. 

In the potential absence of Pogačar at the Vuelta a España, UAE Team Emirates-XRG will be hoping that Juan Ayuso and João Almeida can make the step up, with both having difficult grand tour results so far in 2025. 

Ayuso was one of the pre-race favourites at the Giro d'Italia, and things looked to be going well when he won stage 7, but he abandoned the race on stage 18. For Almeida, the aim will be to recover from his injuries sustained in a crash on stage 7 of the Tour, which caused him to abandon on stage 9. 

The Portuguese rider was well placed in the general classification alongside his team leader Pogačar and based on his 2025 shape that has seen him win the GC at Itzulia Basque Country, Tour de Romandie and Tour de Suisse, he could have potential been a podium contender or at the very least provided key support in the mountains for the World Champion.