Former Tour de France and Vuelta a España winner Pedro Delgado has roundly rejected the idea that if Tadej Pogačar races the Spanish Grand Tour next summer, he could be putting his subsequent defence of the World Championships title at risk.
The UAE Team Emirates-XRG leader is currently weighing up whether to defend his Giro d'Italia title in 2025 or go for his first-ever overall victory in the Vuelta a España.
At least one top cycling media outlet has claimed that Pogačar could risk being overly fatigued in the World Championships in Rwanda, should he opt to make the Vuelta, not the Giro, his second Grand Tour of 2025.
This year's World Championships elite men's road race, where Pogačar will be gunning for a second straight rainbow jersey following his spectacular victory last autumn in Zurich, takes place on September 28. That's exactly two weeks after the 2025 Vuelta finishes in Madrid.
However, Delgado - since his retirement a longstanding commentator on cycling with Spanish National Television - played down the idea that Pogačar might be putting his fight for a rainbow jersey in peril. He pointed out that, if the UAE leader raced the Spanish Grand Tour, by the time the 2025 Vuelta reached its third week the Slovenian could well be already securely in la roja and playing a largely defensive GC game.
"Assuming he takes part, anything barring a victory in the Vuelta would be a surprise for him and for his team," the 1989 Tour de France champion told Cyclingnews.
"If he's racing in the lead in the third week, it'd be up to the others to make the extra effort and Tadej could take it conservatively. So I don't think that riding the Vuleta would affect him too badly, if at all, for the Worlds."
"His rivals would be getting more and more tired trying to attack him in the last part of the Vuelta, but as he'd be riding within himself, he'd actually be recovering. That last week doesn't have to become an extra, specially tiring, effort."
As Delgado points out in the 2025 Vuelta, the toughest stages are almost all in the second and third weeks. Two of the major crunch moments, the Angliru - widely rated as Spain's toughest single climb - and the nearby Farrapona summit finish are on stages 13 and 14.
"The biggest challenge in the 2025 Worlds will be the altitude, but these days the majority of the riders are really accustomed to that, because they train so much in the high mountains. Adapting won't be so hard for them."
"When you're young too, you recover quicker. At 30 or 32 you need 20 days instead of 10 days to recover from a Grand Tour. So most likely, again Pogacar would have had to make a lesser effort than the rest of the top contenders."
"With two weeks, he's got more than sufficient time, he wouldn't need to train - and then he'd become the big favourite at the Worlds once again."
Delgado seemed certain that Pogačar would not have any problem, should he race, with any elements of the Vuelta route in itself, either. This year's Vuelta route features no less than 10 summit finishes, as well as tough climbs as early as stage 2, in Italy, all the way through to the Bola del Mundo ascent outside Madrid on stage 20. There's also a team time trial and two Pyrenean stages in the first week.
"The only way to have made it really complicated for him would be if there were only flat stages, an idea which doesn't really form part of the usual Vuelta narrative," Delgado added with a chuckle.
"It's not specially favourable for Pogačar, either, even with the Angliru. But that doesn't matter."
"Given his physical superiority, basically he can do what he wants. And that's the big difference."
Delgado even predicts that rather than waiting for the setpiece major mountain battles in the second week, Pogačar's aggressive stance will see him push for an even earlier, longer spell at the top of the GC.
"I don't think he'd wait for the Angliru to attack, either. As soon as the race hits the Pyrenees [on stage 6], he'll go for it. Or if not the finish at Cerler [on stage 7] which is a very well-balanced stage with a lot of climbs as well, is another option."
At least officially, the jury is still out on Pogačar's final decision regarding his Giro/Vuelta dilemma, and a final thumbs up or down on racing in Spain is not expected until after the Giro presentation on January 13.
Primoz Roglič's and the magnetic pull of the Vuelta
However, at the same time, another Slovenian star has already made up his mind that he won't be doing the Vuelta a España in favour of the Giro d'Italia, with Primoz Roglič (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) already saying he's opting to try and take a second Giro win rather than a record-breaking fifth Vuelta in 2025.
Delgado is convinced that Roglič could yet end up racing the Vuelta, basing his argument around Roglič's potentially lighthearted comment during his team presentation that "Normally I always finish off with the Vuelta so it’s better I start now with the first one [Grand Tour] and then I still have two more afterwards."
"Logically, he won't be at the Vuelta," Delgado argued, "but in that joke, you could see that he knows the season is long, and he's really good at adapting, and I think he's keeping an open mind."
Delgado recognised, though, that the key goal for Roglič in 2025 will be to turn in a top performance at the Tour de France. He was unable to try to do in 2024 because of crashes both before and during the race itself and in both 2021 and 2022, had to abandon because of falls.
"Roglič is really intent on doing well in the Tour, he's always had problems there and the ideal thing would have been for him to fight for it when he was a very young racer," Delgado reasoned.
"He's been very unlucky there, you might even say the Tour doesn't love him and on top of that right now [Jonas] Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bke) and Pogačar are superior to him in that race. But his pride and fighting spirit make him somebody you can't ever rule out."
