{"id":635419,"date":"2025-12-16T05:27:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/635419\/"},"modified":"2025-12-16T05:27:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-16T05:27:13","slug":"pogacars-ally-doesnt-swear-loyalty-before-paris-roubaix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/635419\/","title":{"rendered":"Pogacar’s ally doesn’t swear loyalty before Paris-Roubaix"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s now official: Tadej Pogacar<\/a> will return to Paris\u2013Roubaix next year. The Slovenian will make the second attempt of his career at the “Hell of the North”. Mathieu van der Poel, winner of the last three editions, is also expected to return to defend his throne. Therefore it won\u2019t be easy for the UAE Team Emirates – XRG<\/a> star, who will even have to keep an eye on his own teammates.Florian Vermeersch<\/a> is one of the world\u2019s best at Paris\u2013Roubaix. In 2025 he finished fifth, and he wasn\u2019t even UAE\u2019s leader, with Pogacar taking second in the velodrome. And on the muddy cobbles of 2021, he finished runner-up behind Sonny Colbrelli, beating even Van der Poel on the velodrome.Then logically, you might expect the Belgian, the current gravel world champion, to be Pogacar\u2019s key ally in pursuit of a first Roubaix triumph<\/a>. But that must not be quite truth as Vermeersch indicates that his plans include jumping after his own chance, if presented with one.<\/p>\n


\nHe made that clear in comments to Sporza<\/a>. While the objective will be to deliver a win for UAE Team Emirates \u2013 XRG, Vermeersch believes the logical call is for both riders to support each other as far as possible, and, when the moment comes, not to block the one best placed to finish the job.<\/p>\n

“I think Tadej would also want me to win,” Florian Vermeersch said firmly. \u201cI\u2019m certainly not going to stand in his way either. First of all, I don\u2019t have the character or the status for that. I\u2019m not worried that he\u2019ll start there too. But we have a good relationship and I think he would also allow me to win Paris\u2013Roubaix.”<\/p>\n

\"Florian<\/p>\n

Florian Vermeersch claims to have a good relationship with Tadej Pogacar<\/p>\n

“I still believe there will be situations where we can complement each other a lot. The most important thing is that we allow each other to win,” he added of their ambitions for arguably the toughest Monument.<\/p>\n

Eye on Grand Tour<\/p>\n

Florian Vermeersch didn\u2019t stop there. Beyond Paris\u2013Roubaix, the UAE Belgian outlined new goals for the 2026 season:<\/p>\n

“The Classics. I\u2019d love to race Milano\u2013Sanremo this year. It\u2019s one of my priorities. After that, I also want to ride a Grand Tour. It will probably be the Giro d\u2019Italia. I\u2019m really looking forward to it. The Tour is always one of the first races I ask for. But I haven\u2019t focused on that. I\u2019m happy with the Giro, which I\u2019ve never ridden. The most important thing for me is to race a Grand Tour,” he concluded.<\/p>\n

The Italian Grand Tour will be without his Slovenian teammate who, for now, has only the Tour de France on his agenda when it comes to Grand Tours for 2026. However that doesn’t mean that UAE won’t shoot for the pink jersey as Joao Almeida returns to finish his business in Italy. In 2023, the Portuguese finished a little over one minute off the overall winner Primoz Roglic. Meanwhile on his debut in 2020, he spent two weeks in Maglia Rosa before finishing fourth overall.<\/p>\n

But Almeida’s Grand Tour history is also marked by multiple abandons, something the presence of a strong bodyguard in the form of Florian Vermeersch should ideally prevent from happening again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s now official: Tadej Pogacar will return to Paris\u2013Roubaix next year. The Slovenian will make the second attempt…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":635420,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,194134,10103,79,16152,181698,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-635419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-florian-vermeersch","10":"tag-paris-roubaix","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-tadej-pogacar","13":"tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg","14":"tag-uk","15":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115727594204702221","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=635419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/635419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/635420"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=635419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=635419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=635419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}