Volta a Catalunya leader Tadej Pogačar confirmed on Friday that winning all seven of cycling’s top week-long stage races is a career goal, but one that—if possible—will take a long time to complete.
Of the seven most historically prestigious week-long races, Pogačar has already won Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico. He is currently holding a commanding lead in a third, the Volta a Catalunya, albeit with a very tough two stages left to race.
Assuming he is still wearing the green and white of race leader of the Volta in Barcelona on Sunday afternoon, that would leave Pogačar with the Tour of Romandie, Tour de Suisse, Itzulia-Basque Country and Criterium du Dauphiné to try to target.
Speaking after a fast and furious stage 5 of the Volta, won by Axel Laurance (Deceuninck-Alpecin), Pogačar recognised that although victories in all seven week-long stage races is a goal, calendar restrictions would make it a lengthy project to try to complete.
“For sure, I want to tick them all off, but it’s going to be a long way because with the calendar, it’s quite difficult,” Pogačar told a small group of reporters.
“Let’s go step by step, first this one and then we can see next year which we can try to go for.”
Apart from Tirreno and Paris-Nice, Pogačar has a major array of week-long stage victories, starting with his breakthrough win at the Volta ao Algarve and - at WorldTour level - in the Tour of California in 2019, but also including since then two triumphs apiece in the UAE Tour and Tour of Slovenia, as well the Vuelta a Andalucia in 2023.
Whether Pogačar wins or loses on Sunday, he will not be taking part in any other of the ‘big seven’ stage races this season, with his next race set to be Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
However, although the Slovenian currently has an impressive lead of 2:27 in the overall classification, he said he has no specific target in mind for how much of a margin he’d like to have on his rivals by the end of the race.
“It’s just important to win; it doesn’t matter if it’s by one second or five minutes,” he pointed out.
“But you never know what can happen the next day - you can always have bad luck, so it’s better to have some time. I’m quite comfortable with two minutes-something, and better this than being stressful with just a ten-second lead or something.”
Finishing 31st and safely in a reduced main bunch on Friday, Pogačar said after capturing his second summit victory in Port Ainé on Wednesday that he hoped for two more relaxed stages. Thursday’s stage 4 was fast but relatively straightforward, with a break going from the bun, but as he pointed out, Friday had been a much tougher affair than he’d anticipated.
“Today was actually a super, super hard stage,” he commented. “I think was one of the hardest of all stages in general until now, certainly with the most attacking.”
“It was an exciting race up until the final, but I’m happy it’s over. Tomorrow [Saturday] is a big mountain day, so - let’s go for it.”
