While Tadej Pogačar is already taking aim at a Road European Championships road race title this Sunday in France, to add to the World Champion's rainbow jersey he defended successfully in Rwanda last week, next season will bring a special opportunity to claim the iconic white and blue jersey on home roads.
The Union Européenne de Cyclisme (UEC) confirmed on Tuesday that Slovenia's bid to host next year's Road European Championships had been successful, with the event set to run in a similar calendar spot in October.
Ljubljana, the nation's capital city, will play host, with the scheduling flipped around from this year. The junior and elite road races will come first on October 3 and 4, before the elite individual time trials bookend five days of racing on October 7.
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It comes after Slovenia's rapid rise to the top of sport, mainly led by Pogačar, the best rider in the world, with four Tours de France, nine Monuments and now two world titles to his name, and five-time Grand Tour winner Primož Roglič.
Pogačar will hope to arrive at one of the biggest cycling events his home country has ever hosted as the defending champion, but that will require him to beat the likes of Remco Evenepoel (Belgium) and Jonas Vingegaard (Denmark) on Sunday, after 202km of racing into Guilherand-Granges.
The other complication, as has been the case with riders heading from Rwanda to France this past week, is the close proximity of the European Championships to the World Championships, which take place in Montréal next year.
Worlds in Canada will come to a close with the men's elite road on Sunday, September 27 2026, giving the likes of Pogačar and Roglič just a week to get home and prepare effectively to honour their home event.
Slovenia's successful bid comes after the small nation already bid to host an upcoming Grand Départ of the Tour de France in 2029, having played a key part in all of the past six editions mainly through Pogačar, a four-time champion and 21-time stage winner.
With a population of just 2 million people, Slovenia massively punches above its weight in the cycling world, but under the leadership of its two top stars, it's become a bigger cornerstone to the sporting landscape there than it already was.
