1 wildcard and 4 World Tour teams say no - Tadej Pogacar leads the Tour de Romandie, but only 15 teams take to the start
CyclingWednesday, 22 April 2026 at 11:30
The Tour de Romandie starts next week on the 28th of April right after the end of the spring classics and brings a new tone to the cycling calendar. The stage-races take center place once again and Tadej Pogacar will be at the start. However, the Swiss race is going to have an extremely small peloton after several teams withdrew from it.
The race is taking place from the 28th of April to the 3rd of May and present six stages which have different formats, attracting different types of riders. It is a race with historical significance, having high-level winners throughout its long history and the same continuing to apply to modern times. Romandie, taking part in the French part of Switzerland, is one of the 'big 7' non-Grand Tour stage-races in the World Tour calendar, which brings it further reputation, and has attracted none other than the World Champion this year.
In a peloton of 18 World Tour teams then, the World Tour event will start with a total of 15 only - with a mere 105 riders at the start. A new UCI rule has allowed teams from 2026 onwards to skip one World Tour event of choice per year, and Romandie was the choice for many. Only four were allowed not to start and in this case they are Alpecin - Premier Tech, Decathlon CMA CGM, Lotto-Intermarché and Uno-X Mobility. It is not known if more teams applied to forfeit the race.
1 wildcard and no Q36.5
What is more odd is that the race organizers did not compensate for this lack of teams elsewhere. Tudor Pro Cycling Team, one of Switzerland's ProTeams, has received a wildcard. Pinarello Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team, who have Tom Pidcock and a World Tour-level team, was not invited - or did not want to take part in. And no other ProTeam level is going to participate in the race either. An odd situation taking into consideration the team's exposure and also availability of UCI points.
The race has been undergoing financial problems and failed to find a main sponsor for this year, underlining its financial problems which put the race at risk for future years. Despite this, there is a very strong list of riders at the start to fight for the overall classification with Tadej Pogacar facing Red Bull - BORA - hansgrohe duo of Primoz Roglic and Florian Lipowitz; INEOS Grenadiers' Oscar Onley; Bahrain - Victorious' Lenny Martínez and Antonio Tiberi; and many more...
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- Mondo Duplantis absolutely deserves to be on the list. Whenever he grabs a pole he produces a thing of beauty. He is an alien, but I don't think he is worthy of beating Pogačar. But Carlos Alcaraz most certainly does not deserve it. He and Jannik Sinner were both level of 2 Grand Slams last year - you can't place one above the other. And if you can't place one above the other then neither are worthy of the award. You have to be dominant. And Alcaraz has some strange habits, he is a real sinner (apologies for the terrible pun). I do think Fabian Cancellara's theory about Pogačar being less appreciated as he is not from a big nation holds up here. It also applies to Duplantis. Marc Marquez is worthy of being up there too. But he didn't get the award because MotoGP isn't big enough - the same situation as Pogačar.
Rafionain-Glas22-04-2026 - All of these "seasoned pros" couldn't have followed Pogi in Strade Bianche like Seixass did. So will it be a surprise if Seixass wins? I just don't know... maybe you're right, considering he's only 19.Dalmatian-Dog22-04-2026
- Exactly, if Remco wins when Jonas and Pogi retire, people and the media would still say: "OK, so he won the Tour, but Pogi and Jonas weren't their." But that is still a good scenario for Remco. What will propably happen are youg good cyclists, ala Seixass and others. Remco will be "washed away" in Grand Tours.Dalmatian-Dog22-04-2026
- Liege is the first race of the season that really suits Pogi the G.O.A.T. So far he has been on "foreign territory" in all four races... but on Sunday he plays at home, on his own turf, and you all know how it ends in 99% of the time. You don't need Mou to draw it for you... d'ya?Dalmatian-Dog22-04-2026
- Some fools on this site are once again "trying to explain" why cycling isn't relevant for the highest awards... especially one "philosopher." Do you all know when I will stop calling Pogi the🐐? When I see someone at one point holding titles at the Tour, Worlds, Strade Bianche and all 5 monuments. The day that happens, Pogi stops being the🐐in my mind. It's an easy task, you just need someone to repeat all of his current achievements plus win Roubaix. PS: I know that one "philosopher" - the Egyptian Mau, might try to answer this tough question that is difficult to answer, often challenging, or requires deep thought, which only philosophers have.Dalmatian-Dog22-04-2026
- Cofidis are doing better now they are relegatedRafionain-Glas22-04-2026
- The only way he's going to win it is if a) he gets remarkably better and (crucially) more consistent at climbing over 3 weeks, or b) if his main rivals are absent/have major misfortunes of their own. And it's possible he might need both of those things to happen in tandem. I've mentioned his palmares before and he's only podiumed three times at the major one week stage races, winning none (so far) out of 12 participations. And this is from a rider who has apparently been focusing on GC riding? You'd expect a rider with serious GT/Le Tour ambitions to start knocking off the one week races at least. He's at 50% DNF for GTs, in only 6 participations. Roglic (for example) has 17 GT participations, 5 WINS and only 5 DNFs - if you want to talk about another rider with a reputation for coming off his bike. I know Remco is still "young", but that's becoming less and less so every year and with the level of the current crop of 19-23 year old's out there, he's caught between a rock and hard place waiting for Pogi and/or Jonas to retire before these kids take their place. He's still a great rider and his classics/Monument/WC wins are epic, but this Tour victory dream - I just don't see it.antipodeanpedalfan22-04-2026
- It’s not a new thing though is it?Mistermaumau22-04-2026
- I agree with Andy. We have seen enough of Rev to form conclusions and he simply is not consistent in the high mountains. One day he can climb with the best , then suddenly he will drop like a stone and cannot challenge the 2nd run of climbers. On top of that he crashes a lot. He does a lot of hand waving and talks a lot about balls but that dont win GTs Sexias is an unknown quantity, nobody knows how he will perform over 3 weeksabstractengineer22-04-2026
- Guess you weren't watching Strade this year or the Euro road championship last year !frieders322-04-2026
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