“The whole picture is slowly coming together” - Urska Zigart closer than ever to joining partner Tadej Pogacar in Grand Tour-winning conversation

Urska Zigart’s Grand Tour ambitions no longer feel like a distant projection. As the Giro d’Italia Women heads towards its decisive weekend, they are being backed up by results, consistency and another place inside the race’s top 10.

After the race returned to flatter terrain on Stage 6, Zigart remains inside the Giro top 10, sitting 3:26 behind Maglia Rosa Anna van der Breggen. That position does not make her an immediate favourite for overall victory, but it does fit a wider pattern. Second overall at the 2025 Tour de Romandie Feminin, fifth at the 2025 Tour de Suisse Women and sixth at this year’s Vuelta Espana Femenina have moved the Slovenian into a different part of the conversation.

In a household already defined by Grand Tour success through partner Tadej Pogacar, Zigart is now building the strongest stage-racing case of her own career.

Speaking to Sportal during the Giro, Zigart framed that progress less as a sudden leap and more as a long process finally becoming visible. “Generally, I enjoy racing more,” she said. “I am more focused on myself and I worry less about what others think or do. I enjoy what I do. I have great support from the team and that shows. I also feel that progress has started to show on descents, but I do not want to talk about that too much in advance in case something turns against me. The whole picture is slowly coming together. I feel like it has been happening for a few years, but really slowly.”

Zigart’s current Giro position has not come in a quiet opening week. The race has already included the uphill time trial to Nevegal Tudor, where Van der Breggen seized control, and the following mountain stage to Santo Stefano di Cadore, where Demi Vollering hit back with victory but Van der Breggen held pink.

For Zigart, staying inside the top 10 through that phase is another sign that her level across stage races has changed. Her Vuelta performance earlier this season put her sixth overall, while her Romandie near-miss last year showed how close she has already come to a major stage-race breakthrough.

The Giro itself carries particular weight for her. This is her seventh appearance at the Italian Grand Tour, and despite the modern rise of the Tour de France Femmes, Zigart still sees the race as a defining event in the women’s calendar.

“Definitely at the Giro,” Zigart said when asked where she feels most at home among the three women’s Grand Tours. “In women’s cycling, this is the stage race with the longest history. For a long time it was the main race, the one all the riders prepared for, so it definitely has a special place. The Tour was also something special, partly because I was there for the first time.”

Her role at AG Insurance - Soudal has also shifted. Zigart said the Vuelta had originally been her main target for the season, while the team expected Sarah Gigante and Lore De Schepper to be prominent Giro options. Gigante’s continued recovery changed the plan, leaving Zigart and De Schepper with redistributed responsibilities in Italy.

Zigart’s rise has not been fuelled only by public reaction to headline performances. Her ride on the Angliru at the Vuelta drew attention, but she does not treat that as the moment everything changed.

“I don’t think it is ever just one single moment,” she said. “Even after the Angliru, if I look at the numbers and my performance, there was nothing very different from what I can usually do. But because it was a more high-profile and iconic climb, maybe people started placing me a little differently in the wider picture."

“I think my confidence comes more from the approval of the people who are close to me and around me, not so much from the reaction of the wider public," she adds. "That just comes along with it.”

The attention around Pogacar will always follow her, but the results increasingly stand apart from that. Zigart is not merely being discussed because of the name next to hers. She is remaining in Grand Tour top-10 contention on her own form, at a point in her career when the progression has become harder to ignore.

The coming days should give a clearer measure of that level. The Giro still has the Colle delle Finestre to come, a climb that has never previously featured in women’s racing and one Zigart has not yet ridden in full despite training several times around Sestriere.

“I have been in Sestriere for training camps a few times, but I have never been to the top of that climb,” she said. “It was always closed because of snow or roadworks, so I have never ridden it in full.”

Finestre is the obvious landmark still waiting in this Giro, but Zigart is not treating the race as one climb alone. She pointed out that the days before it also carry serious difficulty, with long stages, altitude and heavy climbing loads all starting to accumulate.

“Maybe Finestre is more in the spotlight because people are talking a lot about that stage, but today’s stage is also very demanding,” she said. “It has almost 3,400 metres of climbing and it will be important to stay focused all day.”

The wider calendar remains fluid. Zigart has the Tour de Suisse, national championships, altitude training and possibly the Tour de France Femmes still to consider, with her post-Giro condition set to shape the next steps.

For now, the immediate picture is already stronger than at any previous point in her career. Zigart has moved from promising climbing performances into repeated stage-race results, and the Giro is adding another layer to that progression.

Pogacar’s Grand Tour dominance remains one of the sport’s defining reference points. Zigart’s own path is different, slower and still developing, but her current level has brought her closer than ever to making Grand Tour success a realistic part of her own story. The whole picture is slowly coming together.