"If he wins the Giro and the Tour de France, I would go and try to win the Vuelta" - Alberto Contador suggests Tadej Pogacar could aim for the triple

While at the age of 26, Tadej Pogacar has already become a legend of his own, he stills has few steps to go before he can compare his Grand Tour palmares with the likes of seven-time (some would say nine) champion Alberto Contador. And it's the Spaniard who wishes to see incredible things from the phenomenal Slovenian. For example for Pogacar to become the first rider to complete the mythical Grand tour triple of winning Giro d'Italia, Tour de France and Vuelta a Espana in the same year - a feat never seen before.

"If he wins the Giro and the Tour de France, and I’m him, then 100 per cent I try and win the Vuelta," Contador told GCN, as he drew the parallel between Pogacar and his own career, pinpointing the 2015 season when he won the Giro but failed to complete the double at the Tour.

"If in 2015 I had my Giro victory, and I then won the Tour de France, then I would have gone to the Vuelta. I didn’t win the Tour and I didn’t go to the Vuelta but Tadej has a good opportunity in history to do because it’s really hard to win. But he’s young and maybe in three years another rider arrives who is very strong and he can’t do it."

When asked how peak Contador would fare against Pogačar in a head-to-head the 41-year-old smiled. "2014 at the Tour de France, for sure," he said in relation to his own peak after GCN assumed he would go for 2009, when he won his second Tour de France. 

He explains his choice of the year when he didn't even reach the final week, let alone Paris. "I was flying but in cycling you can have a crash. After the Tour, I recovered and I won the Vuelta but I remember at the Dauphiné that year I was very, very strong."

"But Tadej and I are very different riders. In my opinion I’m more similar to Jonas Vingegaard because he’s more of a climber, like me and I’m more of a climber than Tadej. He has a big, big engine and has class, and he can pass the high mountains without problems but he’s not a real, real climber. We’re different riders. But it’s like saying if I could stay with Eddy Merckx. Every moment in the sport is different, and we just don’t know," Contador added.