The following is my best synthesis of what I believe Pogacar should and will do in 2027. I’ll list the races and then explain each choice and omission. This will be a little different from what I posted on X on October 22, because I’ve changed my mind a little.
Tour Down Under
Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race
Strade Bianche
Tirreno-Adriatico
Milano-Sanremo
E3 Saxo Classic
Ronde van Vlaanderen
Paris-Roubaix
Liege-Bastogne-Liege
Tour de France
World Championships
Vuelta a Espana
Il Lombardia
It is looking more and more likely that with his premature end to the 2026 season, Pogacar will open his 2027 campaign with the first WorldTour race on the calendar, the Tour Down Under in Australia. The Tour Down Under is one of the WorldTour events he has never won, and indeed, it was his first-ever race at the highest level of cycling when he debuted in 2019. Incidentally, that was the worst result he ever recorded in a stage race (13th on GC) before his DNF at the Vuelta this year. The only reason Pogacar would not ride TDU next year is the immense travel and jet-lag potential going into the spring classics, but the time buffer is over a month (which I am sure the UCI does on purpose to make the race more attractive to top riders). He’ll likely be negotiating an appearance fee with Stuart O’Grady, the race director, in the coming weeks. His presence in Adelaide would be a massive boon to the event and Australian cycling as a whole. This race is really a win-win for Pogi and everyone else involved, and I believe he will start in January.
A week after the TDU is Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, a one-day race in Australia with some steep hills in the finale. The parcours is more than difficult enough for him to gap his competitors and take a dominant victory, filling another hole in his palmares at WorldTour level. I debated whether he should travel back to Europe immediately following TDU, but hanging around for another week to bag another win and presumably enjoy the Aussie summer makes sense, and will not impact his spring campaign start in March. I think he should and will ride this race too.
Strade Bianche… arguably Pogacar’s favorite race of the whole season, with a record four career victories and the reverence of the Italian tifosi all along the gravel roads that define the event, Pogacar will not be skipping Strade next year or ever again, having won his only appearance at Paris-Nice (the two races are not compatible in the same year) to tick off that box in 2023. He will presumably start as the heavy favorite, but with an ascendant Paul Seixas (who initially followed Pogacar’s brutal attack with 80 kilometers remaining this year, and ultimately finished second) likely to ride Strade again, it will not be a foregone conclusion for Pogi in 2027.
Tirreno-Adriatico is the stage race in Italy that bridges Strade and Milano-Sanremo. Initially, I had Pogacar skipping Tirreno (AND MSR, but we’ll get to that) in favor of keeping his race days lower in preparation for the Tour-Worlds-Vuelta summer, but I don’t see the harm in riding Tirreno again. He won it in 2021 and 2022, and he can easily win it again. Stage races just do not take much out of a rider like Pogacar, and he will be in Italy anyway. Do I think he will start Tirreno in 2027? No, not really. But I think he should.
MSR is arguably the most controversial choice for me. He finally realized a dream this year by winning his fourth different Monument on the Via Roma. The race is just wild, and Pogacar crashed hard en route to winning this year, somehow escaping injury. He made noises this spring about never coming back to MSR, for which no one could blame him. His pursuit of victory there has probably taken years off his life. I think he hated the recons in rough weather and insane traffic leading up to the race as well. But I think he will ride it again, and I believe he should. Next year, I’d put his odds of starting around 60-40, if only because I believe he still has the Monument sweep season in his mind. It will probably not happen for him, with the lottery of Paris-Roubaix (and general difficulty for a climber to win that race anyway) and MSR, in addition to the always-lurking possiblity of crashes in the other Monuments being simply too much to win all in the same year. But adding another MSR victory would enhance his palmares a lot. I don’t know if he feels the same. But he is addicted to Monuments, and if he skips MSR next year, he’ll be back eventually.
E3 Saxo Classic. What? Why in the world? It’s one of the few Cobbled Classics he has a strong chance to win based on the parcours, and he has, in fact, ridden it before, losing in a three-way sprint to Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel in 2023 before going on to win the Ronde van Vlaanderen the following week. E3 was also on his initial program in 2025 before he skipped it (and the race formerly known as Ghent-Wevelgem) in favor of Paris-Roubaix. This race is a nice tune-up for RVV, and he should go for it next year. Now, do I think he will? It’s extremely unlikely.
The Ronde van Vlaanderen is the most-or-second most prestigious Monument. Pogacar has won it three times, which is equal to the record. If he does not attempt the Grand Tour sweep next year (riding the Giro d’Italia), he will be at the start in Flanders. And he will likely win it again.
Paris-Roubaix was shockingly not named by the man himself in his preliminary list of objectives for 2027 ( which were the Tour de France, the Vuelta, and the World Championships). For me, that is irrelevant. Pogacar needs to win all five Monuments in his career. He is missing one, and it is Paris-Roubaix. He has ridden it twice and finished second both times, with extenuating circumstances that may have cost him the win in each edition. He is in his absolute prime, Roubaix can be a lottery, and he needs to keep showing up if he ever wants to win it (as he did with MSR.) The odds of Pogacar skipping Roubaix next year are, in my view, close to zero.
Liege-Bastogne-Liege is the final Monument of the spring season, and it will likely be Pogacar’s final race for months. He has won it four times, and can tie Eddy Merckx’s record of five with another win next year. The race has become one of the most scripted of the calendar, with the inevitable attack La Redoute about 35k from the finish line sure to define the race next year, as it has for half a decade now. The only question is whether, and if so, for how long, Paul Seixas can follow Pogacar when he’s doing 9 watts per kilogram for four minutes and then a similar effort on the final climb, Roche-aux-Faucons. Pogacar will not be skipping Liege next year unless he is injured. And despite the haters and internet “X-perts” claiming that Liege has lost prestige, it always attracts an unbelievable start list of climbers in peak form for the Ardennes, and remains one of the hardest one-day races on the calendar.
The looming question after a bruising spring campaign is whether Pogacar will race between Liege and the Tour de France. If he does not, it would be a more-than-two-month hiatus. I’m leaning towards the notion that he will choose this path, because of the aforementioned Worlds and Vuelta combination after the Tour. If he did decide to race, the Tour de Suisse might be attractive, instead of the Tour Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes, as it is shorter and easier now. But, having won Suisse this year, he probably will not see a need to return.
There is zero chance Pogacar will skip the Tour de France next year or any year. Even if he was 100% determined to do that one year (and I’m convinced he would come to his senses before making this terrible mistake anyway), the sponsorship pressure of the Emirati government, Colnago, and others, as well as team management, would never allow it. Assuming he recovers from his injuries sustained in September, he will start as the favorite to win an *official* record sixth title in the biggest race on the planet. He can also make inroads into Mark Cavendish’s stage win record. He needs 10 to claim the outright record, which should be doable in two years. One of the biggest questions in modern cycling is not really whether, barring catastrophic injury, Pogacar will break many of the most important records in the sport, but how far out of reach he will put them. 10 Tours? 45 stage wins? We just don’t know.
The rest of the season is pretty obvious. He will ride the World Championships in France on one of the hardest courses ever, and likely win a record-tying third rainbow jersey to wear at the Vuelta.
Of course, he will ride the Vuelta after the Worlds to attempt to make amends for his DNF this year, and finally tick off the third Grand Tour. Unlike most of the other races in this program, La Vuelta is one I could see him never returning to after claiming a single red jersey.
There is only one race remaining for him, Il Lombardia, where he can stand alone by winning another record sixth title. As with most races involving climbs next year, if he starts and finishes, he is extremely unlikely to lose.
So that’s an amalgamation of my ideal, and my expected, 2027 schedule for the greatest rider in history. My next piece will examine what his results might look like and consider his expected competition in some of these races.
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