Tadej Pogačar to race Tour de France, Olympics, and Worlds after Giro debut

Slovenian outlines his 2024 calendar as he targets a busy summer of racing

15:11, Monday 18th December 2023

Matilda Price

Racing News Editor

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Tadej Pogačar celebrating a stage win on the Markstein at the 2023 Tour de France

Two-time Tour de France winner Tadej Pogačar will race both the Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France, plus the Paris Olympics and the World Championships in 2024.

He will race a small handful of Spring Classics in preparation, but will not defend his Tour of Flanders title.

After race organisers RCS Sport confirmed Pogačar's presence at the Giro on Sunday afternoon, the Slovenian and his team have announced the rest of his planned calendar for 2024, which includes the Giro-Tour double and a busy summer of racing.

The 25-year-old will make his Giro d’Italia debut in May, where he is expected to chase GC ambitions, and then start the Tour de France, which begins just over a month after the last day of the Giro.

"I am now not so young anymore and I think I can do two Grand Tours," Pogačar told the media from UAE Team Emirates' team camp in Spain on Monday. "I could probably do it before but now is a nice time to do a new challenge in my career."

Since winning back-to-back Tours in 2020 and 2021, Pogačar has been foiled by a dominant Jonas Vingegaard in the last two editions. Despite also leading the team at the Giro, Pogačar is expected to head up the Tour team ahead of the likes of Juan Ayuso, João Almeida or 2023 third-place finisher Adam Yates, though all three will join Pogačar in France.

Doing both races, Pogačar opens up the possibility of doing the Giro-Tour double, a feat not achieved in men's cycling since Marco Pantani did it in 1998. Combined with the World Championships, it could be the 'triple crown' last achieved by Stephen Roche in 1987.

However, it's a big ask, considering Pogačar's lack of wins in those races in recent years, and not necessarily at the forefront of his mind.

"I think everybody wants to do the double and it is one of the hardest things to achieve," he said.

"I think the main goal from all the GC riders that already won some Grand Tours, is to have all three of them. This is something to have in your palmarès, so let's see how it goes with the Giro and how it goes with the Tour. Let's not think about the double, let's just go to enjoy racing."

Olympics and Worlds among post-Tour targets

From the Tour and its Nice finale, Pogačar will race the road events at the Paris Olympics, selection dependent. The time trial takes place just six days after the last day of the Tour, whilst the road race is another week later on 3 August.

Whilst his spot in the road race is more or less certain, Slovenia have only qualified one rider for the men’s time trial, with both Pogačar and Primož Roglič likely to want to race.

Pogačar will then race the Canadian WorldTour races before targeting the World Championships in September, which take place in Zurich.

"OIympics are a bit so-so, but of course World Championships is one of the main goals for next year," he said of his August and September goals.

Featuring a hilly course, the road race in Zurich is suited to the punchier, Classics-type rider, which the Flanders, Liège and Lombardia-winning Pogačar has proved himself to be. Indeed, after winning the past three editions of Il Lombardia, he will be back again next October to hunt a fourth straight title.

Stripped-back Classics campaign in Giro build-up

There are plenty of one-day ambitions for Pogačar, then, in 2024, but they will be concentrated in the summer and autumn, rather than the spring.

As it stands, only Strade Bianche – which he won in 2022 – and Milan-San Remo – where he was fourth this year – are on his Spring Classics schedule. Interestingly, they will not sandwich Tirreno-Adriatico, with Pogačar's only pre-Giro stage race coming at the Volta a Catalunya in late March.

There will be no title defence at the Tour of Flanders, where he triumphed in electrifying fashion this year, becoming only the third Tour de France winner to win the cobbled Classic.

Pogačar will also skip two more Classics he won last year, Amstel Gold Race and Flèche Wallonne, in a paired-down Ardennes Classics campaign that is nevertheless still set to include Liège-Bastogne-Liège.

Instead, after riding Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo, Pogačar will race the Volta a Catalunya in late March before heading off for altitude training.

As it stands, there is no racing planned between the Giro and Tour.