Far from the Giro circus, Pogacar and Del Toro recon crucial Tour de France stages

Twenty-three teams and 184 riders are gearing up for the Giro d'Italia, which starts this Friday in Bulgaria. But not Tadej Pogacar and Isaac Del Toro. The two UAE Team Emirates-XRG stars have left Adam Yates to lead the team in Italy and are instead focusing on the Tour de France together — starting with a reconnaissance of some crucial stages.

That Pogacar would stay away from the Giro for some time was always expected. The Slovenian made his Giro debut in 2024 and delivered an immediate masterclass — taking six stages and the overall classification, finishing streets ahead of runner-up Daniel Felipe Martínez. Del Toro's story is a very different one.

He started the 2025 Giro as a domestique for Juan Ayuso. When the Spaniard faded from contention — partly through crashes — Del Toro stepped up without hesitation. The Mexican wore the maglia rosa for twelve days and won a stage, before being overhauled in spectacular fashion by Simon Yates on the final mountain stage. Despite that painful defeat, the team decided not to enter him in the Giro this year.

He will instead line up alongside Pogacar in France for his Tour de France debut. There, the Slovenian goes in pursuit of a fifth overall victory, while Del Toro is expected to challenge for a podium place. Far from the Giro frenzy, the pair are already deep in preparation. They were spotted in France this week — in the Vosges, to be precise.

Stage 14 features a crucial mountain finish. The Tour travels from Mulhouse to Le Markstein, a summit finish the race visited for the first time in 2023 — a year after the Tour de France Femmes had already arrived there. The winner that day? Pogacar. He and Del Toro chose to get to know the Grand Ballon, one of the climbs before the finish, in advance.

A day later, it was time to scout another stage. Stage 15 also passes through the Vosges, finishing on the Plateau de Solaison — a climb new to the Tour de France, though it has appeared twice in the Critérium du Dauphiné. Jakob Fuglsang took the honours there in 2017, while in 2022 Jonas Vingegaard and Primoz Roglic lit up the stage with a joint uphill time trial. Del Toro and Pogacar will hope for equally spectacular scenes come July.