As road cycling heads into the off-season, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) has confirmed his three major goals for 2027: the World Championships, Tour de France – where he will be chasing a record sixth yellow jersey victory, and the Vuelta a España.
Speaking at a charity golf event in Slovenia, the sport's top rider also clarified what caused him to crash at the latter, where he suffered a concussion and fractures to his collarbone and spine while leading the race on stage 8.
With his recovery almost fully behind him, just missing the return to racing, Pogačar also put the saga and speculation of what caused him to crash at high speed in Spain to bed: "It was a big rock, everything else is fake news."
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He's recently returned to training, both indoors and on the roads, and as November nears, it will all be about building back up to top form before January 1 for Pogačar. The end of the season was changed completely in his absence, but everyone will be expecting his dominance to return when he completes his comeback.
"Last week I started the new season and now it's a slow build-up for the future," said Pogačar to national broadcaster RTVSlo at the Arboretum in Volčji Potok.
"The desire for next year would of course be the World Championships combined with the Tour and the Vuelta. If the Vuelta somehow didn't work out this year... Even if I would rather go to the Giro, I will have to check off the Vuelta at some point. I think that will be the goal for next year."
After the golf event, Pogačar is bound for Abu Dhabi for sponsorship obligations and the team's annual cycling festival. Alongside his UAE Team Emirates-XRG commercial work, though, it will also provide "an opportunity to sit down with the team management and discuss. Since I've already finished the break between seasons, we'll already be discussing specifically what we'll do next year."
It's here where his provisional calendar for 2027 will be worked out, before it is revealed at the team's December training camp and media day. His next day out on the bike in a "race" should come earlier, though, at the BeKing charity criterium in Monaco on November 29, organised by fellow resident and pro Matteo Trentin alongside his wife, Claudia Morandini.
Pogačar had hoped to return early – despite the team stating his season was over in the days after his Vuelta crash – with the European Championships taking place in Slovenia, but the risks were deemed too high, and he remained out of action.
"Because the injury was quite serious. It took me quite a while to get out on the bike.
Five weeks. "... When my shoulder healed and I no longer had any consequences or dizziness, I pulled myself together, and we were also on vacation," said Pogačar.
"I started training on the trainer and physiotherapy with the thought that I could go to the European Championships, which gave me additional motivation for rehabilitation. But still, a little over two weeks before the European Championships, the time came to realize that there was no point in racing. Because if I fell again, the consequences could be really serious and it wasn't worth the risk.
"I have now been training regularly for a week, which is a month earlier than in previous years."
There's talk of Pogačar potentially making his first return to the Tour Down Under in Australia, having made his WorldTour debut there with UAE back in 2019, finishing 13th overall, but again, confirmations will have to wait until December.
For now, he closes out 2026 still as the top-ranked rider, despite missing the Worlds, Euros, and Il Lombardia. He took victories at four of the five one-day races he started: Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo, Tour of Flanders, and Liège-Bastogne-Liège – only missing out at Paris-Roubaix to Wout van Aert, and he won the Tour de Romandie, Tour de Suisse, and Tour de France overall, before crashing out of what became his final race this year, the Vuelta.
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