Five-time winner of the Tour de France (2020, 2021, 2024, 2025 and 2026) and twice runner-up (2022 and 2023), as well as winner of the Giro d'Italia (2024), Tadej Pogacar still needs to add La Vuelta to his Grand Tour palmares. This is why this weekend he lines up at the start in Monaco for his tenth Grand Tour, at just 27 years old. Yet it is precisely the Spanish race that launched him on his quest to conquer three-week races.

The Slovenian prodigy, winner of the Tour de l'Avenir 2018, was not supposed to participate in any Grand Tour in his first season as a professional. Joxean 'Matxin' Fernandez, his sporting director, had developed "a career plan that we had established together, with 65-70 racing days in 2019, then the Giro or the Vuelta in 2020, depending on his choice, and the Tour de France in 2021, to see how he would fare before tackling the race ambitiously in 2022. But he's a champion! He progressed much faster than expected, so we had to modify the plan".

His victory at the 2019 Tour of California accelerated the process. He was so young that the organizers denied him the traditional champagne toast, since in the United States alcohol is forbidden for those under 21 years old.

The 2019 Vuelta saw the presence of three former winners at the start, on the salt flats of Torrevieja: Alejandro Valverde, Nairo Quintana and Fabio Aru, alongside whom the debutant Pogacar was supposed to learn with UAE Team Emirates. But things didn't start off well for the Emirati team, which finished second-to-last in the opening team time trial, won by Astana's Colombian Miguel Angel "Superman" Lopez! The great favorite for that Vuelta was Primoz Roglic, third at the Giro but still without a Grand Tour victory. In his preview of the race, El País hoped for "a young and bold winner", naming "Superman Lopez, (Sergio) Higuita or Pogacar".

For the first time in its history, La Vuelta awarded the white jersey, as in the other two Grand Tours, to the best rider under 26 years old. In 2017 and 2018, the best young rider was awarded the red jersey. Before that, a secondary classification for the best neo-professional, regardless of age, had existed on ten occasions: in 1970 and from 1984 to 1992. Already a winner in 2017, Lopez was considered the favorite, ahead of his Colombian compatriots Dani Martinez and Sergio Higuita, the British Hugh Carthy and Tao Geoghegan Hart, the Spaniard Oscar Rodriguez and "the Slovenian phenomenon Tadej Pogacar", according to a press release from the organizers.

"Pogi" wore his first white jersey at Mora de Rubielos, in Aragon, at the start of the sixth stage, but indirectly, since Lopez wore the Roja from day one. The next day, he lost 51 seconds to Valverde, the winner wearing the rainbow jersey on the steep climb of Mas de la Costa. The Spaniard was the oldest rider in the group and the Slovenian the youngest. Frenchman Nicolas Edet wore the red jersey and Lopez the white one, when Pogacar claimed his first stage victory in a Grand Tour, in the ninth stage to Cortals d'Encamp, in Andorra. A place that will also evoke memories in the fourth stage of this edition of the race, in the Pyrenean principality.

It was time for the media to get to know him. Here's how he introduced himself during the rest day: "My name is Tadej Pogacar. I come from Slovenia. It's a small country where people work hard. I started cycling at nine years old to imitate my older brother, because everything he did, I absolutely had to do too. He stopped, but I didn't. I never stopped improving and, even today, I'm very happy with what I've achieved."

Halfway through, the die was cast: Roglic had an advantage of 1'52" over Valverde after the time trial in Pau. Pogacar was fifth, 3'05" back. At Los Machucos, a steep climb in Cantabria (stage 13), the two Slovenians arrived together, with Pogacar winning the stage and becoming the best young rider in the general classification for the first time. But Lopez overtook him again at Becerril de la Sierra (stage 18), and Pogacar found himself only fifth, 1'18" from the podium, on the morning of the penultimate stage finishing at Plataforma de Gredos. He was wearing the green jersey, however, while Primoz Roglic, Sam Bennett and Alejandro Valverde, the riders ahead of him in the standings, wore other distinctive jerseys. Undeterred by the 4,500 meters of climbing, nor by the rain and wind, the strong breakaway or Astana's efforts to overtake Quintana, third, and Valverde, second, Pogacar attacked 38 km from the finish and concluded with 1'32" advantage over the world champion, who finished second.

"I think I need a few days to realize what I've done", said 'Pogi' in the brief interview. Watching the race on live television, Eddy Merckx, the greatest cyclist of all time, immediately understood that this moment was historic.

Between World War I and the 2019 Vuelta, only three riders had finished on the podium of a Grand Tour before turning 21: Fausto Coppi, winner of the Giro d'Italia in 1940; Antonio Jiménez, runner-up at the Vuelta in 1955; and Giambattista Baronchelli, runner-up at the 1975 Giro d'Italia with Merckx. Until then, only one rider had won three stages of a Grand Tour before turning 21: Giuseppe Saronni at the 1978 Giro d'Italia, but these were not three mountain stages. At the 2019 Vuelta, Pogacar opened a new path, for himself and for a new generation of young prodigies who now seek to challenge him.