After the conclusion of the Giro d'Italia 2024, where Tadej Pogacar swept to victory in his debut with a dominant overall win, including six stage victories, a bombshell has gone off. According to RAI's Beppe Conti, the UAE Team Emirates star has expressed to him off-microphone a desire to return in 2025 to the Corsa Rosa. This would be brutal news for the cycling world, as it has also been rumoured that Jonas Vingegaard could race the first grand tour of the year next season.
It is rumoured that Team Visma | Lease a Bike is thinking about Vingegaard doing next season the same Giro d'Italia - Tour de France double that Pogacar is doing this year. Therefore, we could have an incredible chapter in this rivalry between the two best riders in the world who, so far, have only been able to measure themselves at the highest level in the Tour de France.
This leak comes as a complete surprise, since, without going any further, a day before the end of the Giro in Rome, Joxean Fernandez Matxín announced that the plan was for Tadej Pogacar to race Paris-Roubaix and the Tour de France - Vuelta a España double in 2025. But it must be that the Slovenian is much more attracted to the idea of taking on Vingegaard on Italian roads, where he has already shown that he is capable of shining at the highest level.
This turn of events would make perfect sense. On the one hand, Jonas Vingegaard could redeem himself from a 2024 in which he still doesn't know if he'll be able to race the Tour de France due to his recovery from the crash at the Itzulia. Moreover, if he does, he is not expected to be in the best physical shape to compete against Primoz Roglic, Remco Evenepoel and Tadej Pogacar, who will face the Grande Boucle in one of his best moments.
On the other hand, Pogacar would give up riding the Vuelta a España 2025 in order to have another head-to-head with a Vingegaard who in the last two years ruined the 2022 and 2023 seasons by beating him consecutively in the Tour de France. It is likely that the Slovenian will beat the Dane in 2024, but would it be enough to forget the previous two?
RAI with some news: Tiberi to ride the Vuelta, Pogačar to return to the Giro next year which could start in Trieste and have same stages in Friuli before heading to Abruzzo. Beppe Conti, famous for his "indiscrezioni" also says 2025 Tour de France will include a visit to Italy
