World champion Tadej Pogačar will pin on a race number for the last time in 2025 on Sunday as he takes part in the Andorra Cycling Masters event in the tiny independent principality in the Pyrénées, where numerous pro riders opt to live.
Pogačar will race against Tour de France rival Jonas Vingegaard, fellow Slovenian Primož Roglič and UAE teammate Isaac del Toro, likely for a significant fee, in the new invitation-only exhibition race.
The organisers have described the event as an "historic showdown" where the four riders will compete "man-to-man, no teams, no excuses" to show "who is the true master of the mountains."
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The Andorra Cycling Masters will be a final turn of the pedals before a well-deserved off-season and holiday for Pogačar.
"I don't want to think too much about the next season. I just want to go home and relax a bit before all the chaos starts again next year," he said after winning a fifth consecutive Il Lombardia. His Instagram account has already gone quiet.
Pogačar raced for 50 days in 2025, starting his season at the UAE Tour in February and ending in mid-October. He enjoyed breaks between his successful spring Classics campaign, the Tour de France and the World Championships but also spent long days and hours at training camps.
He won 20 times but raced as favourite each time he lined-up at the start. He recently admitted that he suffered a knee problem in the final week of the Tour, leaving him unsure if he would continue in the race and explaining why he appeared so unhappy in the final week of racing.
"This year, I could see he was really exhausted. Completely drained, maybe. And I thought: now I get it, if he wants to stop cycling,” Pogačar's mother Marjeta told Le Parisien last Sunday after Pogačar attended a fan ride in his home town of Komenda in Slovenia.
Pogačar has reportedly turned down a fee of €200,000 to ride the Tour de France criteriums in Singapore and Japan in early November.
Other obligations will soon fill his diary, with Pogačar expected to attend the UCI Esports world championships in Abu Dhabi on 15 November 2025. He will then be the biggest name at the Beking criterium near his home in Montecarlo on Sunday November 23.
The first UAE Team Emirates-XRG training camp in Spain in December will follow, when Pogačar and the team will decide and perhaps confirm his goals for 2026.
Sunday's Andorra Cycling Masters consists of two events: a 8.23km mountain time trial on the Coll de la Gallina that starts at 9:00am local time, followed by a 32.1km criterium on a 2.14km circuit in Andorra la Vella.
"The goal was to create something completely different from what we've ever seen before," Betim Budzaku, the manager of the Andorra Tourist Board told Nieuwsblad, revealing they had also tried to invite Remco Evenepoel.
"The problem wasn't convincing them to participate, because they were on board from the start. The difficult part was finding a date that worked for everyone."
There is no live television coverage of the Andorra Cycling Masters but there will be a special documentary created about the event.
"From the moment they arrive in Andorra until they return home, the riders will be filmed with their families. This way, fans can see the human side of the riders and learn how they prepare for such races. The idea is to let people see a race from a different perspective," Budzaku said, hinting the documentary will be shown on a major international streaming platform.
"The end result will be a 50- to 55-minute documentary, in the form of a series or film like those we know from Netflix, Amazon Prime, or DAZN. That way, we'll get to enjoy it twice: first at the event on Sunday, and then with the documentary. That will be something very exclusive."
