ANALYSIS: Will the 2025 Vuelta a Espana see Tadej Pogacar fight for his first red jersey?

Earlier this month Tadej Pogacar’s 2025 race schedule for the spring and early summer was confirmed. With appearances at the UAE Tour, Strade Bianche, Milano - Sanremo, and a full array of cobbled classics, Pogacar’s packed calendar makes it highly unlikely he will defend his Giro d’Italia title. Although no official decision has been announced, Pogacar previously stated he would wait for the Giro and Vuelta routes to be revealed before deciding whether to add another Grand Tour to his calendar alongside the Tour de France. Now, with the 2025 Vuelta a Espana route confirmed, speculation is high about whether the Slovenian superstar will target the red jersey for the first time, which is of course the only grand tour he has yet to win.

The Vuelta takes place from August 23rd to September 14th, giving Pogacar 27 days to recover and prepare after the Tour de France, which runs from July 5th to 27th. So, will Pogacar tackle the Vuelta? Let’s dive into the route to analyse whether the double is within his reach, and who else throughout history has achieved the Tour-Vuelta double.

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A closer look at the 2025 Vuelta a Espana route

The 2025 Vuelta a Espana will be the 90th anniversary of the race, which will begin in Piemonte, Italy and travel through the Alps with high-altitude finishes, long climbs, and punishing stages across four countries: Spain, Andorra, Italy, and France. The route’s defining features include iconic climbs such as the Alto de Angliru, La Farrapona, and the Bola del Mundo. However, the first week of the race provides a relatively gentle introduction, potentially allowing Pogacar some extra breathing room after the Tour de France to hit his peak level, before the more challenging stages.

Week one

The Vuelta begins with a flat stage in Turin, that will give the sprinters a chance to fight for the red jersey. There’s some climbs through stages 2, 3 and 4, that could create some early gaps in the GC, but nothing too difficult, especially for Pogacar. Then there’s a team time trial on stage 5, and UAE Team Emirates should be able to have a strong team here especially if Pogacar is present. The first week gets significantly more challenging on stage 6 and 7 with back to back mountain stages, with stage 6 including a category 1 climb of the Collada de Toses, and stage 7 has some eye watering climbs. With 2 category 2 climbs, and 2 category 1 climbs, stage 7 is a day where Pogacar would want to be fully recovered from his Tour de France effort.

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Stage 13: The Queen stage?

Stage 13 could be regarded as the queen stage of next year’s Vuelta, featuring the legendary Alto de Angliru, a climb notorious for its brutal gradients of up to 24%. This stage alone could decide the GC standings, and nearly did back in 2023 when Roglic and Vingegaard dropped Sepp Kuss who was leading the race, but we’ll speak more about that later. Following the Angliru, the peloton faces Alto de la Farrapona on stage 14, a long, another tough day that will offer the riders little to not rest from the day before. These stages should suit Pogacar’s legendary climbing ability, assuming he can recover sufficiently after the Tour.

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The Bola del Mundo finale

The race concludes (this is the conclusion for GC, as stage 21 will be for the sprinters in Madrid) with a showdown on the Bola del Mundo, and there will be several other difficult climbs before the peloton reaches the finale. The final week features several mountainous stages that will likely determine the overall winner, which means it is absolutely that if Pogacar does compete, he is able to recover as well as he did between he Giro and the Tour in 2024.

Joxean Matxin, Pogacar’s team director at UAE Team Emirates, weighed in on the 2025 Vuelta route after its reveal. “Those ten summit finishes, five or six really mountainous stages, two time trials. It’s a really tough race,” Matxin noted to AS. He emphasised the demanding nature of the course, highlighting how its structure could appeal to his star rider, Pogacar. The dual time trials also play into Pogacar’s strengths, offering opportunities to gain time against his rivals as he did at the Tour and Giro in 2024. However, Matxin also acknowledged that the compact schedule and intense competition would require careful planning and execution once more.

Tadej Pogacar's countryman Primoz Roglic won the Vuelta a Espana for the fourth time in 2024

The challenges of the Tour-Vuelta combination

If Pogacar decides to race the Vuelta, he will attempt to recover from the Tour within 27 days. History shows that completing both the Tour and the Vuelta in the same year is an extraordinary challenge, but it has been done by some of cycling’s greatest champions.

In 1963, Jacques Anquetil became the first rider to achieve the Tour-Vuelta double, and the French legend’s accomplishment cemented his dominance as one of cycling’s all-time greats. Fifteen years later, Bernard Hinault added his name to this exclusive list. In 1978, Hinault showed that it was possible to peak twice within a season, as his legendary endurance saw him claim victory in both Grand Tours. More recently, Chris Froome achieved the feat in 2017, during the peak of his powers. The Brit dominated both the Tour and the Vuelta in modern times, and he then won the Giro in May 2018 to hold all three grand tours simultaneously.

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Surprisingly, even the great Eddy Merckx never managed theTour-Vuelta double, which highlights how challenging it is. The logistics of recovery, training, and competing against fresher rivals make the task formidable.

Pogacar vs Vingegaard

In recent years, the rivalry between Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard has dominated Grand Tour racing. And even whilst at different races, they’re still competing. Vingegaard nearly became the first of the two to win multiple Grand Tours in the same year in 2023, as after crushing Pogacar at the Tour de France, he looked to be the strongest rider at the Vuelta too. However, team orders at Jumbo-Visma held back the Dane and ensured Sepp Kuss claimed the Vuelta, as Jumbo-Visma made history by winning all three Grand Tours in a single year with three different riders.

Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard have traded heavy blows at the past three editions of the Tour de France

If it wasn’t for those team orders, it is likely that Vingegaard would have added the a third grand tour to his collection before Pogacar did. And on another note, wouldn’t it be great to watch the two best riders of this generation face off in another race, where the main objective is a colour other than yellow?

Can Pogacar peak twice in 2025?

The short answer is yes, we think Pogacar can peak twice again in 2025. At 26, Pogacar is entering is prime years, which is scary to think considering how dominant he was this year. And Pogacar’s 2024 season proved that he thrives under challenging conditions, and that maybe multiple grand tours suits his style.

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What could present a challenge is if Vingegaard or Remco Evenepoel decide to target the Vuelta as well as the Tour. The only ‘criticism,’ of Pogacar’s Giro win was that the competition was not particularly strong, and so he may not have had to overly exert himself to win. The Slovenian’s recovery will need to be near-perfect if he is to compete with stronger rivals at back to back Tours, but of course his rivals will have to recover well too.

Will Pogacar race the Vuelta?

The 2025 Vuelta a Espana presents a route tailor-made for Pogacar, with iconic ascents that suit the Slovenian superstars strengths. However, the demanding nature of the race, coupled with the short recovery window after the Tour de France, raises questions about whether he can realistically target both events, and pull off a grand tour double two years in a row.

While history shows that winning the Tour and Vuelta in the same year is possible, it has only been achieved by cycling’s elite, which Pogacar is certainly one of. If Pogacar decides to tackle the Vuelta, he would join legends like Anquetil, Hinault, and Froome in pursuing this rare double. It seems a matter of when, not if, Pogacar wins his first red jersey, but can he combine yellow with red in 2025? Hopefully we will not have to wait too much longer to discover his full schedule for 2025.

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