A 5th Tour win doesn’t excite Pogačar as much as Paris-Roubaix

Tadej Pogačar will be about unfinished business in 2026.

Cycling’s world No. 1 confirmed his racing program on Saturday with some interesting twists.

Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix will share top billing with a bid to equal the all-time record of five Tour de France victories in a calendar designed to win big races and push the unstoppable Pogačar deeper into the record books.

Pogačar’s lean-and-mean calendar, unveiled at UAE’s pre-season camp in Spain, doubles down on the monuments and the Tour in July, and wastes little time on unnecessary detours.

“I think I would choose Roubaix over the Tour, because I already won the Tour four times. I think there is a bigger difference between zero and one than between four and five,” Pogačar told journalists. “But the record of five Tour wins matters to me.”

This year, there’s no early-season obligation to race the UAE Tour, or anything else that doesn’t tickle his fancy.

In fact, the king of the peloton doesn’t even start a stage race until the Tour de Romandie until after the classics campaign is over, and later at the Tour de Suisse, two of the few remaining WorldTour stage races that he hasn’t started or won.

From a season launch at Strade Bianche through the cobbles of northern France, the Slovenian’s focus is completing the monument sweep, a feat that only three elite men — Rik Van Looy, Eddy Merckx, and Roger De Vlaeminck — have achieved.

At 27, he’s far from done, but only the biggest and most challenging races interest him now.

La Primavera and the Hell of the North remain the only monuments missing from an otherwise historic palmarès that already includes multiple victories at Tour of Flanders, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Il Lombardia.

After close calls this year — with third at both San Remo and second at Roubaix — the resisting monuments move to the center of the agenda.

Who can stop him? A record-tying fifth Tour seems inevitable

The Tour de France remains non-negotiable, however, with Pogačar chasing a fifth yellow jersey that would equal him with Jacques Anquetil, Eddy Merckx, Bernard Hinault, and Miguel Indurain.

Pogačar’s trimmed-down calendar will see him go all-in on the classics. It’s a style of racing that he thrives in and is growing to appreciate more than the day-in, day-out grind of the grand tours.

“In the classics, it’s just one day. You go there, and everything is concentrated on that day, but it’s not pressure like at the Tour,” he told journalists Saturday in Spain. “The Tour is way more stressful. It’s impossible to have the same amount of fun when you go deep every day on the bike. At the Tour, you work for 21 stages, and afterwards you can be happy with what you did.”

The other big news is that Mexican sensation Isaac del Toro will make his Tour debut, while João Almeida will target the Giro d’Italia and Vuelta a España.

The world championships in Montréal also remain unconfirmed but on the radar, with a bid to win a third straight rainbow jersey all but in the cards.

What remains as TBD is a tilt at the Vuelta a España, the only grand tour missing from his résumé. Pogačar acknowledged there are still a few boxes left to tick, even if that list is shrinking by the season.

At this point in his once-in-a-generation career, he has nothing left to prove. What drives him now is racing on his own terms.

“If I ever win San Remo and Roubaix, I would think more or less that there is not much more you can do,” Pogačar said. “There are a lot of one-week races I have not won yet, and La Vuelta as well. The years are going really fast, and there is not so much time to try to win everything. The calendar in cycling is very big.”

For now, though, Pogačar is putting the one-day races and a fifth yellow at the center of everything.

The list of riders who can beat him is shrinking as fast as his career wish-list.

Tadej Pogačar confirmed 2026 schedule

Strade Bianche, March 7
Milan-San Remo, March 21
Tour of Flanders, April 5
Paris-Roubaix, April 12
Liège-Bastogne-Liège, April 26
Tour de Romandie, April 28-May 3
Tour de Suisse, June 17-21
Tour de France, July 4-26