As the countdown to the 2024 season gathers pace, Cyclingnews looks at some of the key storylines that will define the coming year in cycling.
When it comes to a discussion of Tadej Pogačar's possible goals for the 2024 season, there are two key factors.
First, his versatility and consistency mean that literally any race on the calendar could be an objective. Second, at just 25, Pogačar has all the time in the world to try to win every race he wants to.
After all, this is the rider who triumphed in his first event of the 2023 season, the Jaén Classic on the rutted shale-tracks of southern Andalusia, and in his final event of the season at Il Lombardia.
Those races bookended a season where he showcased his gifts at Paris-Nice and the Tour de France, at Flèche Wallonne and the Tour of Flanders. Time and again, he singlehandedly upended the idea that shining in such a broad variety of races simply can’t be done.
Pogačar’s ability to choose multiple options in the future is hugely boosted by his age. At the Saitama criterium teammate Davide Formolo pointed out that the Japanese exhibition race would be the last time he would wear the Tour de France best young rider’s jersey.
As of 2024, Pogačar, after turning 25 on September 21st, will finally no longer be eligible for the Tour de France maillot blanc. It was a timely reminder of how much he has already achieved already in his career.
So where does Pogačar go from here?
Asked a few weeks ago for a bucket list of events he’d like to win at least once before his career ends, Pogačar named the Giro d’Italia, the Vuelta a España and the Worlds Championships.
But, as he’s also pointed out, the Tour de France is the one event that matters the most to sponsors. So even if his own wish-list no longer revolves around July – a month in which he revealed, intriguingly, that he is usually not at his best – other factors logically come into play.
When it comes to working out what Pogačar might do in 2024, perhaps the best strategy would be to start by including the events where the opportunities are – even for Pogačar – more limited than usual. The two events that do seem most likely to figure on his programme are the Paris Olympic Games and the World Championships.
The road race routes in Paris on August 4 and in Zurich on September 29 are both hilly and technical and, as such, Pogačar would be in his element. Of the two courses, Zurich is the more demanding and this makes the Worlds the more feasible target in itself.
Yet the lack of any long-distance travel required for this year’s Olympics and the comparative rarity of an Olympic road race could make Paris a top priority. Pogačar will have perhaps two more opportunities to win Olympic gold and so add an extra dimension to his cycling palmares.
Of course the Tour de France is central to his 2024 season, largely because of the unfinished business from 2022, when the fractured wrist he sustained at Liège-Bastogne-Liège left him on the back foot in his battle against Jonas Vingegaard (Jumbo-Visma). It’s also clear that Pogačar’s sponsors will expect him to make a priority of the Tour.
Yet perhaps the biggest motivation for Pogačar to continue to fight for the Tour in 2024 is the route itself.
The very difficult start in Italy will certainly be to his liking, given that we saw this year how he likes to test his rivals from the word go. The gravel stage at the end of the opening week also plays clearly to his strengths, while the final four days of the Tour sees stages that cover many of his training roads, including a time trial through the streets of his adopted residence of Monaco.
The Tour’s climbing challenges in 2024 are more spread out throughout the race, making it harder for Vingegaard to wear him down as he did so effectively in 2023, and there are plenty of opportunities for ambushes.
With Remco Evenepoel (Soudal-QuickStep) and Primoz Roglič (Bora-Hansgrohe) added to the mix of major rivals, Jumbo cannot centre their race on defeating Pogačar to the extent they did in the past two summers.
The Tour, the Worlds and the Olympics seem to be all on Pogačar’s 2024 race programme, but the rest of his schedule is more open to interpretation.
In ordinary circumstances, the Giro’s gentler than normal course, plus the likely absence of any of the other ‘big four’ – Roglič, Evenepoel and Vingegaard – might tempt Pogačar to head to Italy before the Tour. But given his heavy schedule later in the year, not to mention the stakes in July after two second places, it now seems almost certain that the Slovenian will forgo trying the Giro-Tour double in 2024.
The precise nature of Pogačar’s Classics campaign is also yet to be defined. If Pogačar surprises everybody and opts for the Giro, then his Classics participation might be limited to Milan-San Remo and perhaps Liège, either side of a stage race like the Volta a Catalunya.
Assuming the Giro is off the table, of course, then the prospect of a return to the cobbled Classics rises rapidly – but it’s perhaps not a certainty even then.
The burning question for UAE Team Emirates this winter will have been figuring out how to get their man to the Tour fresh enough to beat Vingegaard, while also drawing up a schedule that allows him to express himself like he did these past three Springs. It’s not a straightforward balancing act.
With so many options on the table, it’s getting to the point where it’s probably easier to say which races are definitely not on Pogačar’s agenda. On the other side of the Tour there’s the Vuelta a España, of course, a race where Pogačar has already finished third overall but the idea he might take part can be rapidly dismissed, given the other challenges he has in the summer.
The only Monument that looks to be absolutely ruled out is Paris-Roubaix. Pogačar’s slight build is one factor against him taking part in the Queen of the Classics, and in 2023, with so many options on the table later in the season, it would be all but impossible to conceive of him trying to peak in form in April, then July and again in September.
And yet, race organiser Thierry Gouvenou won’t be the only person who thinks that Pogačar can basically do whatever he pleases. Or as he put it: "Pogačar can compensate for his lack of weight due to his extraordinary physical capabilities and his will to win.”
And that’s not true only of Paris-Roubaix. Time and again in 2023, those two factors proved critical in tipping the balance of power in races in Pogačar’s favour. And in 2024, no matter where he races, that’s likely be true all over again.
Pogačar and UAE Team Emirates are expected to reveal his major goals for 2024 at the team's media day on December 18. They have lots of options but also face some tough decisions.
