Even as arch-rival Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) is in full Giro d'Italia mode, Tadej Pogačar has begun his first part of the build-up for the Tour de France at altitude camp, team management said.
Following a highly successful Classics campaign and a crushing overall win in the Tour de Romandie, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader is now in southern Spain at Sierra Nevada.
Last year, Vingegaard and Pogačar crossed paths at altitude camp in Sierra Nevada during their countdown for the Tour de France. This time around, while Vingegaard will be racing in Italy until May 31, Pogačar's camp has started slightly later than in 2025, when he was training in the same location prior to the Critérium du Dauphiné, now renamed as the Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes.
"He's there, and he's in Tour de France mode," UAE Team Emirates-XRG sports manager Joxean Fernández Matxin told Cyclingnews during the Giro d'Italia.
Pogačar's participation in the Tour de Suisse, which starts on June 17, will be a first for the Slovenian champion, while at the Tour de France, Pogačar will be looking to join Eddy Merckx, Miguel Indurain, Jacques Anquetil and Bernard Hinault as a five-time winner of cycling's toughest stage race.
Matxin politely but firmly rejected the suggestion that while in Sierra Nevada, Pogačar might do a recon of stage 20 of the Vuelta a España, which finishes in the southerly mountains on the crunch summit finish of Collado del Alguacil.
While Pogačar is expected to spend three weeks at Sierra Nevada this May, the 16-kilometre Collado del Alguacil, with constant average gradients of 10% and higher in its last eight kilometres, is set to make its debut in professional cycling on September 12 in the Vuelta.
For now, however, Pogačar's 2026 race program for after the Tour has not been revealed, although a bid for a third straight road title in the World Championships is strongly rumoured as all but certain.
