Ignition: How One Race Sparked World Domination

The Men’s World Road Race Championship will take place in Montreal this weekend without its defending champion, a crash in the Vuelta a España having seemingly ended Tadej Pogačar’s 2026 season. Of course Pogačar had finally looked set to win the Vuelta…finally, because this is the last Grand Tour missing from his collection, and it had been a long time coming.

The SlovAlien had in fact made his Grand Tour debut in the Vuelta in 2019 and never returned until this year. That first appearance, though, has gone down in cycling history as the race, the moment that lit the spark, the beginning of a one-man firestorm that would tear through professional cycling. Pogačar finished it with three stage wins and a place on the podium in Madrid. We had quite simply never seen anything like it. 

In this special KM0 episode, Daniel Friebe revisits and relives that 2019 Vuelta, speaking to key witnesses and delving into his own memories, those of Dani Arribas and Michele Pelacci. 

Ignition was written and produced by Daniel Friebe.

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The Cycling Podcast was founded in 2013 by Richard Moore, Daniel Friebe and Lionel Birnie.