Professional Cycling 2026 – The Prince That Was Promised?
Better late than never here is a thread for discussing the professional cycling season of 2026 – a season that is already well underway, with the classics season already in the rearview mirror and the Giro being halfway through.
In some ways, it is a season of more of the same, but in another, it is a season that bodes something new.
What remains the same: Pogacar continues to dominate – arguably yet again taking a step up – and is practically the favourite for every race he participates in – a reputation that he lives up to in the fullest, already taking 9 wins this season, including winning three of the four spring monuments – a feat unheard of in modern cycling which hasn’t been accomplished since (you guessed it) Eddy Merckx did it (twice!), latest in 1975. Pogacar continues to cement his place as the greatest rider in generations and – arguably – the greatest of all time, given his dominance in an era of cycling where this level of dominance across terrains and types of races is completely unheard of.
Jonas Vingegaard remains the perennial challenger, who this year takes a different approach, as he is currently riding in the Giro d’Italia, where is the massive favourite. He will be looking to copy Pogacar in the 2024 season by going for the Giro Tour double, yet whether he can accomplish it remains to be seen, and it would be a huge upset if he manages to overcome his nemesis which he hasn’t done since the 2023 season. I, however, remain a believer blinded by national bias.
As mentioned, however, things are not what they used to be in the peloton. Something has happened. A ray of light has broken through the darkness that has enveloped French cycling for numerous years.
Paul “Atreides” Seixas aka Lisan Al-Gaib has emerged as the hottest name in cycling, with the teenager being catapulted onto the world stage with an overwhelming spring season, in which he has dominated all races except when a certain Slovenian was present – but even in them he has pushed him and crushed all other opposition.
It is clear that Seixas is special – he is currently performing better than Pogacar was at his age, and his future looks bright. He is also set to participate in the Tour de France this year, an event which cannot be overstated. Whether he can challenge for the podium or even the win remains to be seen – he has never raced a Grand Tour yet, so everything is an open question. However, a hope has been lit in France that they may soon have their first winner of the Tour since Hinault won in 1985, and Seixas has already established himself as one of the giants of cycling, who will be among the favourites of every race he shows up for. I personally believe it is too early this year for him to be a real contender for the Tour, but who can tell with the stratospheric rise that he has had this season, where he has seemingly only gotten stronger every time he's racing - and surely it cannot be coincidental that his first win on the world tour came on Easter Sunday – the day that Messiah rose again!
Hopefully, we're looking forward to a cycling season for the history books, with potentially Vingegaard and Seixas breaking or challenging the chokehold that Pogacar has had on the Tour for the past two years. And with Red Bull also being a potential contestant with Evenepoel and Lipowitz, the latter of whom finished third last year and looked relatively close to Pogacar in Romandy, hopefully we will get an exciting Tour de France come summer.
16 Replies
Pogacar's spring performance is truly one for the history books. Another TdF win and he progresses from in the pantheon of all time greats to real conversation about being the GOAT.
Watching the Giro it's hard to imagine Vingegaard not winning. Nobody can match him as a climber. Felix Gall has looked really good, but he's still not an equal.
Yeah what he is doing is truly remarkable, even being in contention for being able to win all monuments while also dominating Grand Tours is something that nobody has done in the modern age of cycling.
Indeed, and it doesn't help that Gall is not good at TTs like we saw today. Now he's 2 minutes behind him, so even if he has a great day when Vingegaard has an off-day it is difficult.
Hardly surprising, though. Given the competition it would require a monumental collapse for Vingegaard not to win this race (excluding crashes or illness of course).
He should be able to win on 90% - which is fortunate given he seems to not be at his top level. His TT today was poor - he shouldn't beat Ganna on a course like this but I do feel he was below level. Hopefully it's all part of a calculated strategy where he isn't supposed to peak right now because the real test is the Tour, and he can win the Giro without being at his best, but who can tell.
yes, I thought Jonas' time trial result was surprisingly poor. It seems he should still go on to win & I would be happy for him - he is an excellent rider & seems to be a good man, so while I am very clearly a Tadej guy, I have nothing but respect for Jonas
Lots at stake for Pog this year at Le Tour A 5th win makes him equal with the legends while still a young man & time to keep winning....albeit we all know how difficult it is to remain at the front. He can also continue to ascend the lists of stage wins & number of yellow jerseys worn. For me, the stage wins one is very important.....I love how aggressive and competitive he is & so him going for it all the time is super cool.
I am also very interested to see more of Seixas. Another challenger for the GC would be great. I had hoped Pidcock may ascend but that now seems unlikely & Remco seems to have settled at his level too.
Today was peak VingeGOAT. He never looked bothered in the slightest, went solo with 4.5 km to go and nobody could even TRY to match the move. He's just pedaling along like it's a training ride and you wouldn't know how fast he's going if you weren't watching him put chunks of time into all the other contenders. Team looked great too, even Tim Rex destroying himself leading the train up to the penultimate climb.
It wasn't an issue today, but as usual I have no idea WTF Movistar is doing. I forget whether it was yesterday or Thursday, but I was watching a stage and they have three or four guys up front, setting the pace for no apparent reason. The break was not way ahead, they didn't have anyone in the break, they weren't trying to bring back the break. They were just riding tempo, ahead of Visma, doing all the work for what?
Another emphatic win today. More like what most probably expected ahead of the race, so it seems like the illness Jonas talked about really was holding him back some. He sounded great at the interview yesterday, saying his form is great but he expects to be even better at the Tour. Let's hope it happens so we can have a close competition (or, even better, Vingegaard winning by 5 minutes - though even I would be flabbergasted if that were to happen).
Yeah, Movistar tend to operate in mysterious ways lol.
I think it would be awesome if we can get a toe to toe battle at the Tour.
Jonas is paying $4.80 at Australian sportsbooks today. Tadej has been incredible this year too, but this seems like good value so I've just taken a small position - not enough to want Jonas to win...but an emotional hedge at least
Another emphatic win today. More like what most probably expected ahead of the race, so it seems like the illness Jonas talked about really was holding him back some. He sounded great at the interview yesterday, saying his form is great but he expects to be even better at the Tour. Let's hope it happens so we can have a close competition (or, even better, Vingegaard winning by
Just getting a chance to watch the highlights now and again what a performance. Gall covered the move for maybe 10 seconds and then he was gone. Nobody else had the legs to even try.
I sure hope we get Vingegaard in this kind of form at the Tour, could be a battle for the ages.
A beautiful final stage in Rome has concluded in a win for Jonathan Milan which helped salvage Lidl's Giro, ending with a stage win, a day in pink for Ciccone and the mountain jersey, which is probably a bit less than they had hoped for but still definitely acceptable.
As for the GC, Vingegaard emphatically underlined that while he may not quite be on the level of Pogacar the past few seasons, there is still an enormous gulf between him and everyone else, winning five stages - despite riding relatively conservatively and not going for all stages that he could potentially win, and on several stages not looking particularly strained despite putting more than a minute into everyone else.
He has stated that he believes he will be better in the second Grand Tour of the year, and undoubtedly this win will have given him a big mental boost ahead of the Tour. Whether that will translate to him performing better than ever, or whether he will follow other greats of cycling Froome and Contador in having paid too steep a price for riding in the Giro remain to be seen. I will say I also thought last year the gap between Vingegaard and Pogacar was actually not that big for most of the Tour - except for two stages where Vingegaard seemed to have inexplicable offdays. If he can avoid those while also having improved a few percentages the race can hopefully become more exciting than it has been for the past two years.
Now the inevitable post-GT blues will set in, but fortunately in less than a week another competitor for the Tour are due to race for the first time since April. Paul Atreides err... Seixas will participate in the [strike]Critérium Dauphiné Libéré[/strike] [strike]Critérium du Dauphiné[/strike] Tour Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, a race that is known as arguably the most classical pre-Tour test - although in latter years it is perhaps even better known for its organizer's seemingly incessant compulsion to come up with a worse name.
While neither Pogacar nor Vingegaard will be there, as Pogacar is on his quest to win all races by going to Tour de Suisse instead and Vingegaard will be resting/preparing for the Tour, it will still be a big test, with the main competitors likely being the UAE duo of Almeida and Del Toro as well as last year's 4th place at the Tour Oscar Onley. The 8 stages include some difficult mountain stages, most notably the final stage which ends at the top of Plateau de Solaison, which will also be the finishing line of a key mountain stage at the Tour. How Seixas fares here will inevitably shape the narrative about his chances going into the Tour and whether France will be set up for potential collective ecstasy.
Just watched today's stage 4 of the Dauphine and that may have been the most pathetic peleton performance ever. Didn't seem like the breakaway ever got more than a minute and a half advantage (in fairness I wasn't paying THAT much attention) and there was no climbing in the late stages. How do you fail to close down 90 seconds? So much WIL.
I still can't remember the new name of the Dauphine but it's delivering some good viewing. Hope Seixas doesn't have any lingering effects from today's crash, great effort by him to chase.
Pure dominance from Del Toro. Gone from distance, nobody could make even the smallest dent in the gap. With only Ayuso even able to attempt an attack over the last two days it's pretty clear that there were no other serious threats to Pogacar/Vingegoat supremacy.
Give Tuckwell a lot of credit too, gave everything he had.
this first hilly stage of Tour of Switzerland is why I'll never give Vingegaard half of the credit I give to Pogacar
Vingegaard wins 5 stages at the Giro where he always goes for it with a few kilometers to go on a summit finish where he hasn't spent an ounce of energy before the attack. he never had to give a single pull on the flat or in a descent in 3 weeks
Meanwhile Pogi goes solo on the flat with 70km to go on the first stage 😊
He’s reckless! That’s why I love him so much. Pure fearless attack
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a preview of the 7 'key' stages in this year's Tour
https://www.tntsports.co.uk/cycling/tour...
I hadn't realised that the Tour starts with a team time trial & that they are 'scoring' it differently with each rider being given an individual time & the average of the sum of those times being used as the official time for each team member.
what I haven't found out is how many of the team's times make up the average...is is it the top 3, the top 5 of all the riders?
of personal note only...the solo time trial is between Evian & Thonon les Bains. I spent a glorious Summer in Thonon learning French after my penultimate year of high school
ok, so I think I got that wrong. Here is the actual rule for stage 1
On the opening day of the 2026 Tour, by contrast, each team will set out together, but each rider will be timed individually at the finish. Rather than tailor their effort to ensure that at least four riders come home together, teams will essentially provide a high-speed lead-out to put their leaders in the best possible position to gain time on their rivals on the short, sharp final climb up Montjuïc.
so Pog or Jonas or whoever can actually potentially take yellow on stage 1
Same as at the Dauphiné - you basically start together, lose 1 or 2 of the weakest ones quite soon into the race then try to stay together (4/5/6) until the end where the 2/3 best ones go all the way to the end.
I musy say UAE looks quite a bit stronger than Visma on the TTT with Wout and Affini (?) out which is quite positive for the race because Jonas will likely need to catch time
