Can Tadej Pogacar win any kind of cycling race? He and his team have organised the tactics in such a way that more and more races are suitable for a climber like him. Classics hunter Mathieu van der Poel and Remco Evenepoel, the new star of Team RedBull-Bora-hansgrohe, have shown the outstanding Slovenian the limits, at least in individual races. And Florian Lipowitz has cheated his way into the circle of the best. What lessons can be learnt from the past season for the 2026 racing year?
His world is the mountains. As soon as things get more than a few metres uphill, there's no beating this man. Or so it seems - because Tadej Pogačar once again racked up one victory after another in the past season. Almost always when it was really uphill. But not only. The Tour of Flanders is not really the terrain for someone like him. But even in the almost flat part of Belgium, he discovered a rather inconspicuous hill as the starting ramp to a success he hardly thought possible: he used the Oude Kwaremont as the key section, the longest climb in the race at 2.6 kilometres with an average gradient of 3.5 per cent. Only the middle section is significantly steep for a few hundred metres. At the top, at a rather modest 104 metres above sea level, all competitors were left behind. For good. When he won the Ronde for the first time in 2023, the professional cyclist from Team UAE may have benefited from the surprise effect. But last year, the manoeuvre succeeded again - even though everyone had expected it. In reality, however, neither the Slovenian serial winner nor the sporting directors of his racing team realised the potential of the Flemish sting. The tactical foxes from Team EF led by German Andreas Klier had come up with the idea of letting the Italian Alberto Bettiol bid everyone else farewell with a fast ride. That was in 2019, and Tadej Pogačar was still an unknown new pro at the time. His riding style seems like something from another era, when courageous and aggressive outsiders still had a chance of winning. In the meantime, the 27-year-old Slovenian is not only ahead of the competition on long mountains, but is also the reference in the flatter classics. Strade Bianche, Tour of Flanders, Flèche Wallonne, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, Tour of the Dauphiné, Tour de France, World Championships, European Championships, Tour of Lombardy - his uphill speed has always been the key to his successes.
Does he always win when he wants to win?
"If Tadej Pogačar wants to win, he will win," said Rolf Aldag, long-time sports director of various professional teams, to the "Stuttgarter Zeitung" at the end of the 2025 season. Of course, it's not quite that simple. But it is true that the more metres in altitude a race route has, the more likely it is that the aggressive and speed-resistant climber will win. He has turned the generally flat Tour of Flanders, with around 2000 metres of climbing over 268 kilometres, into a kind of mini mountain race. "It's really impressive and seems so easy. It's reminiscent of the time when Eddy Merckx rode," said Mathieu van der Poel about his rival's riding style in an interview with the Belgian newspaper "Het Laatste Nieuws". But contrary to what you might think, he is not unbeatable. Who knows that better than the Dutchman, who has won two decisive duels.
Milan-San Remo: Too easy to make it difficult?
"The race I absolutely want to win," said Pogačar before the start of Milan-San Remo. The longest, most unpredictable of the "monuments", as the five most prestigious classics are also known. Despite its length of almost 300 kilometres, it is comparatively easy to ride, but difficult to win - because too many people are involved and tactics play just as important a role as the strength of the legs. "I love the classics, they are pure adrenaline. A one-day shock that has nothing to do with the suffering over three weeks," Pogačar told the French sports daily "L'Équipe" before last season. He is an all-rounder, an ambitious player - but he doesn't succeed at everything. With the combined efforts of his team-mates, he also tried to remodel the former sprinter's classic Milan-San Remo into a kind of mountain race on the Cipressa and Poggio. But there was one rider he couldn't shake off: Mathieu van der Poel, who seems to know exactly when he can beat his rival and how. After almost 300 kilometres, the 30-year-old classics specialist stuck like a limpet to Pogačar's rear wheel despite the horrendous pace, used the slipstream, dosed his strength - and won in the final sprint. Danish rider Mattias Skjelmose achieved the same feat weeks later at the Amstel Gold Race. Perhaps this will encourage some of his rivals to do the same in the new year.
Exciting duels in the classics
Van der Poel has the strength, the speed, the experience, the tactical skill and the riding technique to defeat the supposedly unbeatable. The Dutch rider from Team Alpecin-Deceuninck outsprinted the world's best cyclist on the way to San Remo, but had to let him go in Flanders - weakened by an infection. A week later, he waited patiently for the attacking Roubaix debutant to make a mistake, who promptly crashed. Steering artist van der Poel was up and away and celebrated his third victory in a row in the velodrome. But these defeats only spurred "Pogi" on even more: He wants to become the record winner of the Tour de France next summer, but also finally cheer as a winner in San Remo and Roubaix. However, Van der Poel is not yet a bit tired of his favourite races in the spring. To his credit, he has shown how the serial winner can be defeated. And where. The duel will continue in the new season - it looks like it will.
Lipowitz as a challenger on the Tour?
So there are ways and means of beating the world's best - although the greatest opportunities are probably offered by those races in which he is not at the start: Jonas Vingegaard and Simon Yates used his absences at the Vuelta and Giro to win overall. Vingegaard, winner of the 2022 and 2023 Tour, will continue to work on closing the gap on his long-time rival, even if he could already feel the breath of new, younger rivals on his neck when he won the Vuelta. The Dane is planning his debut at the Giro d'Italia in 2026, where his eternal rival from Slovenia is unlikely to bother him. Before the usual duel between the two at the Tour in July.
New faces emerged as chasers and future challengers, including Florian Lipowitz. The 25-year-old Swabian aroused new enthusiasm among German cycling fans when he fought his way to third place overall in the Tour de France with passion and an aggressive riding style. Alongside 22-year-old Mexican Isaac del Toro and Scotsman Oscar Onley, he is one of the pros who could have a permanent place alongside arch-rivals Pogačar and Vingegaard in the tough stage races in the future.
However, Pogačar's previous team-mates Juan Ayuso, Isaac del Toro and Joao Almeida have not yet been able to capitalise on their chances of winning tours in the absence of their boss. At the Vuelta, tactical confusion and internal strife revealed that success cannot be taken for granted, even for a so-called super team like UAE Emirates. Without the superman. Ayuso has now emancipated himself, stepped out of Pogačar's shadow and switched to Team Lidl-Trek. He is destined for the Tour and will be able to show in the new jersey that he is as strong a tour specialist as he believes himself to be. Del Toro is to start as a noble helper at the Tour and will probably not be able to ride as sensationally as he did at the last Giro, where he narrowly missed out on overall victory on the final day. Almeida is scheduled to race the Giro and Vuelta in the new season. Now aged 27, it is time for him to prove that he can win a Grand Tour.
Evenepoel in the fast lane
Remco Evenepoel will ride alongside Lipowitz next year in the Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe jersey. The Belgian appeared weak after a long injury break at the last Tour and gave up. However, with his victories in the individual time trial at the World and European Championships, the 25-year-old proved that he is currently the reference in the battle against the clock. And he delivered one of the pictures of the season: the Olympic champion flew past Pogačar on the final climb of the World Championship individual time trial as if he were an amateur. Evenepoel had made up a whopping two and a half minutes over the 40-kilometre distance. The proof: the best cyclist at the moment can be beaten on certain days, on certain terrain or in certain disciplines. Or as a team, as Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe is planning to do next July, when Evenepoel and Lipowitz will join forces to attack the dominator of recent years and look for his weaknesses.
Before the new season, however, Pogačar once again proved his strength in the last races of the season last autumn, successfully taking revenge for the defeat in the World Championship time trial with impressive solo rides in the road races of the World Championships (66 kilometres at the front), European Championships (98 km) and the Tour of Lombardy (33 km). Many things may look easy for him - but it is undoubtedly the result of hard work for the Slovenian if he seems to be pushing the limits further and further. The hero certainly looked tired last year and said as much. The most exciting question with regard to the new season is therefore: Can he maintain this level? And for how long? And who will show him the limits? First chance: at the world number one's season debut on 7 March at the Strade Bianche race.
The provisional 2026 racing calendar by Tadej Pogacar
- 07.03. Strade Bianche
- 21.03. Milan-Sanremo
- 05.04. Ronde van Vlaanderen
- 12.04. Paris-Roubaix
- 26.04. Liège-Bastogne-Liège
- 28.04. Tour de Romandie
- 17.06. Tour de Suisse
- 04.07. Tour de France
Andreas Kublik
Editor
