I’m going to offer a slightly different take on what I think Pogi should aim for next year. But I have already changed my mind significantly from when I tweeted just three days ago. The like to that post can be found here.
Here’s what I now think he ought to do next year:
Strade Bianche, Milano-Sanremo, E3 Saxo Classic, Ronde van Vlaanderen, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Giro d’Italia, Tour de France, Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec, Grand Prix Cycliste de Montreal, World Championship Road Race, Giro dell’Emilia, Tre Valli Varesine, Il Lombardia
I think Pogacar should ride two Grand Tours and all five Monuments next year (last year he rode two Grand Tours and three Monuments).
But let me explain the thought process behind each race on his program before discussing what was omitted.
Strade Bianche is a race he has already won twice in dominating fashion, with 50k and 81k solos, so it’s kind of unnecessary to ride again. However, he dearly loves Strade and racing in Italy (where he is revered) in general. The timing is also perfect for his program. It’s a prestigious opening race he can likely dominate without digging himself too big a hole. It never hurts to add a third “Sixth Monument” to one’s palmares. So he should go back to Tuscany and do Strade.
Milano-Sanremo is one of two Monuments he has yet to win, despite having attempted it four times, including a podium finish this year. You can be sure that he will be back with a vengeance and hopefully a stronger team to set up his savage attack, which I hope and expect will come on the Cipressa (the penultimate climb). I believe if he brings 98 percent form he will win this race next year, because his team will be a lot more powerful, his Cipressa attack will not be followed, he almost never comes back when he’s solo in the front, and I’d be surprised if he didn’t aim for a mini-peak in form in mid-March to tick off this Monument. If he never wins MSR, it will surely haunt him to his grave, especially if he does pull off Roubaix at some point in his career. So let’s hope that he gets it done next year.
Then, if I were Joxean Matxin (one of his team’s managers), I would send Pogi to the Flemish cobbles, starting with the E3 Saxo Classic. Pogacar rode this race in 2023 and finished third in a three-up sprint with Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel. Pogi animated the race with a series of brutal attacks on the bergs but did not do enough to shake off the two cyclocross cobblers. 2025 Pogacar is a different prospect, and while MVDP was surely stronger in 2024 than he was the year before, Pogi leveled up more in that time frame. This is still kind of a preparation race for Holy Week (Flanders and Roubaix) but Pogi never rides a race without trying to win it. He’ll need a strong team to relentlessly push the pace on the climbs from 100+ kilometers out, and brute strength, but I think he can win this race. If MVDP and WVA do not participate, he will start as the heavy favorite.
Next up is one of the biggies, the Ronde van Vlaanderen, which means I would skip all of the other Flemish Classics and just target this one with E3 as a warm-up. I rank De Ronde as the most prestigious Monument of all. No one could forget that Pogacar won it just last year, obliterating MVDP and all the rest of the Northern Classics specialists on their home turf and going solo to claim his third different Monument title. MVDP was in a bit of shock after the race (having already won the race twice before, including out-sprinting Pogacar in 2022); he believed he had ridden his finest Flanders ever yet lost to a GC rider, of all rivals. Never before in the modern era had we seen such a display of merciless strength and skill on the cobbles from a climber. As I have said before, Pogi’s victory in the 2023 Ronde van Vlaanderen converted me to a fanboi more than any other race in his career. All of this is to say that I really hope he goes for it again in 2025. He would be the betting favorite. And of course, Monuments are not all created equal. I do not know the exact difference, but some say one Flanders is worth at least two Lombardias. I would not go that far, but De Ronde is certainly more prestigious than Lombardia in my book. So adding a second Ronde would be nice.
Then, the arguably the most controversial race in my program for him is Paris-Roubaix. This is a race he has never ridden before, but has confirmed in interviews that he will eventually target. Any rider of Pogacar’s stature and with his record in Monuments is naturally going to be drawn to Roubaix, which many analysts consider the “Queen of the Classics” i.e., the most prestigious Monument. It’s also undoubtedly the hardest for a climber to win, for obvious reasons (it’s flat and has a lot of cobbles). But Pogacar is not a traditional climber, and in the 2022 Tour de France he was far-and-away the strongest rider in the peloton on the cobbled stage. If anything, Roubaix would suit him a lot more because it’s much longer and harder than that stage was. I had seen enough after that stage and declared him the favorite for Roubaix whenever he decided to start the race. Of course, MVDP and WVA would have a theoretical advantage due to their higher weight and implied higher sustained power output (weight also helps the bike maintain speed on cobbles, I believe) as well as their incredible handling skills. But Pogacar is simply a unique figure in the history of cycling, and I wouldn’t be surprised if his FTP, or his 5-6 hour output, (which is what wins Roubaix) is pretty similar to those two guys, otherwise how else would he climb mountains so much faster than them? He is significantly lighter, but that weight difference explains his climbing prowess, not a major difference in raw power output. Pogi should start riding Roubaix every year from 2025 on because it can be a bit of lottery with crashes and mechanicals, and he will dearly want to win it at some point in his career.
Then, it will be time for yet another ride through the Ardennes at Liege-Bastogne-Liege, a race he was won twice so far in his career, but realistically would have probably won five times already if not for extenuating circumstances. That, of course is cycling. But the course is pretty perfectly tailored to his abilities. So if Pogacar does not crash (which he did in 2023) he will almost certainly win Liege next year. But I am optimistic that all of the Big Four will be present at Liege in 2025. It could be a gargantuan battle in April. Oh, and Pogi should skip Fleche Wallonne and Amstel Gold Race, because he does not need the added race days, and he won both in 2023, so there is not much reason to ride them again.
Now it’s time for another controversial option: a return to the Giro d’Italia as defending champion. Why would he do this instead of the more expected Tour-Vuelta double? Well, I’ll get to why he should skip Spain next year. But as I mentioned above, he loves Italy, and Italy loves him. The 2025 Giro is rumored to go into Slovenia, and he would be offered an enormous appearance fee. But this has to be thought about in the context of his preparation for the Tour de France. As he proved this year, it turns out that a training camp Giro (which consists of targeted efforts on certain stages) controlled sternly by UAE Team Emirates is the best preparation for the Tour de France. We cannot forget that the Tour is by far the most important race on the calendar, and Pogacar will surely return to France next year to try to win his fourth Grand Boucle. But we also need to consider that another Giro title would do a lot to bolster his palmares and perhaps even more importantly prepare him to win the Tour again. This plan, of course, is operating on the assumption that none of his big rivals will turn up for the Giro, a belief that may be incorrect. If Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic ride the Giro, perhaps Pogacar should duck them. LOL JK. He does not duck anybody. He announced his schedule first of the big hitters last year and gave everyone every opportunity to challenge him. None of them showed up at the Giro and he ruined all comers at the Tour. He should do the Giro no matter who else plans to race.
The race I am second-most sure Pogacar will participate in next year is the Tour de France. It may not be his laser-focused, biggest goal of 2025 from January 1st, but I would assume he will do the training camps (including the Giro) and show up in top form next July to try to capture number four, which would put him one away from the official record. It probably will not be a cakewalk, but we can never know at this point. Pogi might get even better next year and win the Tour by fifteen minutes. Or he might get worse (I do doubt that though). It’s hard to imagine a rival other than Jonas, Roglic, or Remco Evenepoel challenging him at this point, but who knows. Last year at this point there was no way Jonas could lose the Tour. We know what happened.
Then it will be time for a break and then a familiar schedule: the same six one-day races that he did this year to conclude his season.
He seems to like the Canadian races and performs well there, and he can win both. Montreal is a good preparation race for the World Championship. There aren’t many other great options at this point in the season, so he might as well go back to Canada.
One of his big targets for the year will surely be the World Championship Road Race in Rwanda, on another course that should suit him. I think it’s too hard for MVDP and possibly WVA, but not packing the sustained climbing that would give Jonas a shot. Roglic would be his teammate, which leaves Remco as a rival. But Pogacar, at this point, is the big favorite to win the rainbows again. There is chatter that he wants to win the Rainbow Jersey four years in a row (of course he wants to, but the debate is more about how he’s going to structure his season(s) to try to achieve that, specifically skipping the Vuelta for the foreseeable future).
To finish things up, Pogacar will likely do the same three Italian Autumn Classics he did this year, with the goal of winning all of them. He has won all three before, but not in the same year. Emilia is first up, which he dominated this year in his first race in rainbows.
Then it’s Tre Valli Varesine, which is the warm-up for the final Monument of the season. Pogi won a reduced bunch sprint in 2022, but was outfoxed by Ilan van Wilder last year and orchestrated the cancellation of the race due to biblical rain this year. I would expect him to participate again next year.
Finally, Il Lombardia will conclude Pogacar’s 2025. This is the race I am third-most certain he will ride next year. He has the opportunity to add another Monument, win five titles in a row, which would of course be a record, and tie the record for total Lombardia victories. That record is held by one of the biggest legends of the sport, Fausto Coppi, and I think Pogacar wants 10 Lombardias to ensure the new mark never gets sniffed. Il Lombardia is Pogi’s Nadal at Roland Garros. He is unbeatable there, literally. He’s currently four-for-four so far. Of course, the naysayers always have something to criticize. It is the easiest Monument for him to win, and some have accused him of “stat-padding” with this race, which I understand to an extent. It’s not on par with Flanders, which he skipped this year. But it is not his fault that a). some of the other big hitters tend to skip it and b).he holds his form into October better than other riders. But a). is barely true; some combination of all other members of the Big Four GC riders have ridden Lombardia in the past four years. Pogacar just wins it every time because he’s better and because of b). He’ll have very short odds for the Race of the Falling Leaves in 2025 and I would be quite surprised if he did not make it five in a row.
So let’s discuss the obvious omission of the Vuelta. As I alluded to above, I believe Pogacar is going to target the World Championships and Lombardia to conclude his season next year and probably the year after as well (he has a shot to repeat Peter Sagan’s feat of three consecutive World Championships on three different continents). The Vuelta is not optimal preparation for this end of season schedule. Despite the Spanish Grand Tour being a glaring hole in his resume, he will prioritize other things next year. I could see him not doing the Vuelta again until 2027. He can win it anytime, which is probably how he and his camp are looking at it. I think that is a bit risky, but really what we are discussing here is an utter embarrassment of riches. Most riders (all but him, in fact) do not get to look at the calendar and decide which races they won’t win next year because of a scheduling conflict. They don’t win them because they can’t. Pog putting off the Vuelta for years might come back to bite him, or it might pay off. We will see.
Now, there are some potential problems with this schedule. There is no time for an extended altitude camp immediately before the Giro with the Classics schedule trickling through Liege. E3, Flanders and Roubaix are the obvious races that could miss the cut in favor of a stage race (Itzulia Basque Country probably, and perhaps Tirenno-Adriatico between Strade and MSR) and altitude training for the Giro. I would argue that he can win the Giro without the altitude camp, but that might not be his team’s calculation. But even if he can win the Giro without altitude, the cobbles could interrupt his preparation, or crash him out of the Giro before it even started.
He could do the cobbles but skip Liege and still do the Giro, which would give him over a month at training camp after Roubaix. That might be his preferred option. Or, he might do the full Ardennes week but skip the cobbles, thus doing the altitude camp after MSR and before Amstel Gold Race. That is also a good plan to keep the Giro high up on the list of priorities.
I don’t see a need to change his plan for the Tour and the remainder of the season. It worked perfectly this year, and it probably will again next year. If he is not going to ride the Vuelta, he might as well go all-in for Worlds and the only autumn Monument.
By the way, if he is ever going to do a Grand Tour triple in one year, he will have to de-prioritize every other race, skipping most of them, and just focus on Giro-Tour-Vuelta. Maybe he can ride a few Monuments before the Giro, but I don’t think it is possible for even Pogacar to win Monuments and three Grand Tours in one year (however, every time I anyone has said he can’t win something, he’s pretty much gone and won it, so I’m preparing baseball cap recipes for when he does) I don’t think it’s a bad idea to try one year, but not next year. Perhaps in 2027…
What else is missing in 2025?
My program has none of the Big Seven one-week stage races. Pogacar did mention earlier this year in an interview that he wanted to win all seven in his career, which no one has ever done (Roglic has won six, and is missing only the Tour de Suisse). But the reality is that Grand Tours and Monuments matter more, and there are simply too many races on the calendar to do it all. He has already won three (Tirreno, Paris-Nice, and Volta Ciclista a Catalunya), which leaves four to go. Maybe one year, he can just rip through three more of these races (it is not possible to do the Tour de Suisse and Criterium du Dauphine in the same year) and get super close to finishing the job. But that would likely require shifting some other pieces of his schedule. That said, I do believe it’s possible he does Itzulia, Tour de Romandie, and/or the Dauphine next year. Itzulia and the Dauphine are two of Jonas’ usual Tour de France preparation races, so hopefully we get those two squaring off before July.
Arguably, the schedule also avoids the early-season stage race like the Tour Down Under and UAE Tour. He has ridden both before, TDU in 2019 in his first WorldTour race, where he finished 13th (his worst-career result in a stage race) and won the UAE Tour twice due to sponsor obligations. I could see him going back to Australia to have some fun, but the course only has a couple stages of consequence. I doubt he will bother with the travel in January just to poach a small-time WT stage race. It would interrupt big training-camp time for GC riders.
That’s about it for what I think the world’s best cyclist should do in 2025.
We could certainly see another legendary season from him next year. I hope so, but I hope for some great battles with the other biggest hitters in the peloton. I do fear slightly that he will dominate with such authority that the uncertainty before races he participates in will be regarding who will finish second and third. But we are still fortunate to watch the GOAT in his prime. And we just never know what will happen between now and March with the other guys. Remco in particular is on my radar as the man with the potential to become a real challenger to Pogacar in the future. His potential is just so high.
He’ll be my next subject for a 2025 campaign.
Until next time,
Jamie
Puncheur 
Leave a comment