With over 58,000 metres of vertical climbing, the 2026 Vuelta a España has been described by its race director Javier Guillén as the hardest he's ever seen. But this evening's very short opening time trial in the streets of Monaco could be one of the most technical in the race's history, too.
Featuring multiple corners over just 9.4 kilometres and with 170 metres of climbing out of the 2026 Vuelta's total of over 58,000, as leading favourite Tadej Pogačar put it in his pre-race press conference, "it's not going to be a 60kmh flat-out time trial. You will have to use the brakes."
Due to start his time trial at 19:19 local time on what looks set to be a warm, dry evening in Monaco, Pogačar promised to give it everything on the course, but warned that the chances that he could be wearing la roja just a few streets away from his current home are not overly high.
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But despite knowing the roads very well, the UAE Team Emirates-XRG rider said he would do a good recon of the course to minimise any potential risks.
"You just need to go a bit slower in the corners. That’s it," Pogačar said on Thursday when asked about comments by Wout van Aert – a top favourite for Saturday, who has even gone so far as to recreate his own simulation of the time trial route to practice on it, according to Het Laatste Nieuws - that "the organisers have pushed the limits with this route."
"I know the roads really, really well. I go with the motorbike, I go with the car, I go with the bike, I walk them. It’s not ideal, but it's not going to be a 60 kilometres per hour flat-out time trial," said Pogačar.
"You will have to use the brakes and use a bit of a different pacing strategy than what we are used to."
A 10-minute effort
Pogačar argued that on the recon, once the route had been barriered off, it would be possible to see the riskier corners and work out how to tackle them best.
He also pointed to similarities between the course and the race-opening TT in Copenhagen in the 2022 Tour – although thankfully the weather in Monaco promises to be better than in Denmark, where rain made it much tougher for the late starters and top contenders.
"It's pretty technical; it reminds me a little bit of the Copenhagen time trial in the [2022] Tour de France; we also went through one garden, a sidewalk or something.
"In the end, every rider needs to manage their own effort. It can be as technical as it can be, but it's up to each rider about how fast they go."
It has to be said that Pogačar does not have great memories of opening time trials in the Vuelta. In 2019's opening team time trial on the course in Torrevieja near Alicante, in a somewhat surreal turn of events, a child's bathing pool in a nearby garden burst during the race and water spilt downhill and out onto the course. Several teams, including UAE and Jumbo-Visma, crashed and fell as a result.
Given his success rate in the sport overall, though, Pogačar can never be ruled out of any event he starts in, and he promised to make an all-out effort to take the only Grand Tour leader's jersey still missing from his palmares on day 1.
“I’m going to give everything. The first stage will not be easy for me. I will do my best, but the competition for the first day will be very high," he said.
"There are guys who will be very fast and who are very technical, who will be very fast on this course. I will try; I just want to start the race, go there and see how it is.”
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