Pogacar sparks fresh Vuelta talk with Sierra Nevada climbs recon
Tadej Pogacar has brought his altitude camp in Sierra Nevada to an end, but his stay in southern Spain may have done more than sharpen his form for the Tour de France. It has also added fresh intrigue to the question of whether the Slovenian will return to La Vuelta later this season.
According to AS,, Pogačar ended his Sierra Nevada training block on Sunday, June 7, after several weeks of Tour de France preparation in southern Spain. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader used the camp for a mix of long climbing days, intensity work and time on the time trial bike.
The main target remains clear. Pogačar is preparing for the Tour de France, which starts on July 4 in Barcelona, where he will be aiming to win a fifth Tour title. Before that, he will race the Tour de Suisse, one of the few stage races still missing from his palmarès. His calendar after July, however, remains open.
That is where La Vuelta enters the picture.
During his final days in Andalusia, according to AS, Pogačar trained on several climbs that will feature in this year’s Spanish Grand Tour, including Collado Alguacil and El Purche. Both are set to be part of stage 20, a brutal mountain day finishing in Granada on September 13.
It is not unusual for Pogačar to use the Sierra Nevada roads during altitude camps, but the timing and the route choices have inevitably fuelled speculation. La Vuelta is the only Grand Tour he has not won. His sole appearance came in 2019, when, still only 20, he announced himself to the wider cycling world by winning three stages and finishing third overall behind Primož Roglič and Alejandro Valverde.
Since then, he has built one of the most complete records in modern cycling. He has won the Tour de France four times and added the Giro d’Italia in 2024. A victory at La Vuelta would complete the full Grand Tour set and place him in an exclusive group of riders to have won all three.
His great rival Jonas Vingegaard recently added another layer to the story. The Dane, already a Tour de France and Vuelta winner, has now added the Giro d’Italia to his palmarès, completing his own Grand Tour set before Pogačar has managed to do the same.
UAE, though, are not rushing the decision. Speaking to AS at the Giro d’Italia in May, team manager Joxean Fernández Matxin said Pogačar’s programme beyond the Tour would depend on how he comes out of July, both physically and mentally.
“The first thing is the Tour de France,” Matxin said. “In the past we have already seen that finishing such a demanding season can leave a lot of accumulated fatigue. The priority is to arrive well at the Tour and then decide the rest of the calendar depending on how everything evolves.”
That caution is understandable. Pogačar’s late season ambitions are substantial. The World Championships in Canada, the European Championships in Slovenia and Il Lombardia are all expected to be part of his autumn programme.
He has also traditionally raced the Canadian classics in Québec and Montréal, with this year’s Montréal circuit offering a useful preview of the World Championship route. A start at La Vuelta, however, would rule out those Canadian one day races, as they fall on the final weekend of the Spanish Grand Tour.
The decision will likely come during or shortly after the Tour de France. That was also the case in 2025, when Pogačar came close to returning to Spain before eventually choosing rest after the physical and mental demands of the Tour.
This time, however, the possibility appears to be very much alive, not least with La Vuelta starting in Pogačar’s adopted home of Monaco.
Make us your preferred source on Google
Stay closer than ever to the latest cycling news, interviews and analysis. Simply selecting Domestique as a Preferred Source can really help us grow, while making sure you see more of our stories in your news overview.
