Roglic's return, Van der Poel's Classics prep and the storylines to follow at Tirreno-Adriatico

The arrival of Remco Evenepoel prompted a general overhaul of the staff at Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe and a clear rearrangement of the leadership hierarchy. After leading at the Tour in his first two seasons at the team, Primož Roglič has been moved sideways at Red Bull, with the Vuelta a España the lone Grand Tour on his programme.

The Slovenian bore that demotion with his usual equanimity at the team’s media day in December, acknowledging that he would like to ride the Tour while accepting that management was entitled to distribute their resources however they saw fit.

Remco Evenepoel’s fast start at Red Bull meant that Roglič risked becoming the team’s forgotten man, but the Belgian since stalled at the UAE Tour, while Tour co-leader Florian Lipowitz was relatively subdued at the Volta ao Algarve after an interrupted winter.

It’s far too early to countenance any deviation from the original plan for the Tour, of course, but Roglič will look to remind his employers of his reliability when he lines up for his first race of the season at Tirreno-Adriatico, an event he won in 2019 and 2023. This time out, Roglič will race alongside Red Bull’s Giro co-leaders Jai Hindley and Giulio Pellizzari in a triumvirate.

“Tadej Pogačar still has no limits, but he now has a successor,” read the headline in L’Équipe on Sunday morning after Paul Seixas’ striking second place at Strade Bianche, and the idea was heightened when Het Laatste Nieuws reported of UAE Team Emirates-XRG’s apparent interest in one day securing the Frenchman’s services.

Quite what Isaac del Toro makes of all that is anyone’s guess. As with Alexander the Great, in any case, the post-Pogačar line of succession is far from clear, and Del Toro has been diligently staking out his claim for a shot at the crown with his sequence of displays over the past year. 

The Mexican began the new season in the same vein, deputising for Pogačar at the UAE Tour with two stage wins and overall victory. On Saturday, Del Toro was a consummate teammate, employing the dark arts to block Seixas’ pursuit of his leader on Monte Sante Marie and helping himself to third place in Siena.

With Pogačar opting out of stage racing until late April, Del Toro has another chance to lead at Tirreno-Adriatico, and he will be eager to seize the opportunity as he builds towards his Tour de France debut in July. The lack of a set-piece summit finish means this could be a more open Tirreno than usual, but Del Toro is an all-terrain threat, and he sets out from Camaiore as the obvious favourite.

Tirreno-Adriatico was created in 1966 expressly as a preparation race for Milan-San Remo, and the route has always been designed accordingly. A succession of stages over 200km usually feature to help riders bank racing miles in preparation for La Primavera’s mammoth length, while there are always at least two sprint stages to help the fast men hone their speed for the Via Roma.

In the Pogačar era, however, Milan-San Remo no longer lends itself to sprinters in quite the same way as yesteryear, and the fast men who will line up in Pavia on March 21 will set out more in hope than expectation. 

A clutch of them are in action at Tirreno-Adriatico, with Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), and Paul Magnier (Soudal Quick-Step) set to challenge for stage wins this week while building towards Milan-San Remo.

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech), who in 2024 showed the race is still just about within the range of some sprinters, is also on hand at Tirreno, but the modern fast man’s relationship with Milan-San Remo is perhaps best encapsulated by Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Intermarché). 

The Belgian is at Tirreno, but he has already ruled himself out of riding Milan-San Remo due to the distorting presence of Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel. “Milan-San Remo is a lost day for me. It’s pointless,” he said.

While Pogačar has opted against all stage racing before the Monuments this season, Mathieu van der Poel returns to Tirreno-Adriatico, a favoured preparation event over the years. Indeed, a stage win in the pandemic-delayed edition of 2020 teed him up for victory in that year’s October Tour of Flanders, while he produced one of the standout performances of his career when he soloed to victory in miserable conditions at Castelfidardo in 2021.

In hindsight, mind, Van der Poel might have rued going so deep at that high-octane edition of Tirreno, as he fell short at the Classics that followed. He had to settle for fifth at Milan-San Remo, he was outmanoeuvred by QuickStep at E3 Harelbeke, and he then lost a two-up sprint to Kasper Asgreen at the Tour of Flanders.

In the years since, Van der Poel has been more cautious in his March racing, and he has been content to fly largely under the radar on his past two appearances at Tirreno-Adriatico in 2023 and 2025.

We can expect striking cameos as part of Philipsen’s lead-out train here, but it will be fascinating to see where else Van der Poel decides to run through his scales in preparation for the first instalment in his Spring trilogy with Pogačar at Milan-San Remo.

With Omloop Het Nieuwsblad already added to his palmarès, Van der Poel has little need to seek assurance about his condition from Tirreno-Adriatico. By contrast, his eternal rival Wout van Aert will be keen to pick up something more tangible than good vibes from his week racing between the two seas.

Van Aert has endured a tough opening to 2026, fracturing an ankle in a cyclocross crash on January 2 and then missing his planned season debut at Omloop due to illness. He returned in time to start his campaign at Le Samyn, only for a late puncture to ruin his chances of contesting the win.

The Belgian returned to Strade Bianche for the first time in five years on Saturday, but he saw the lie of the land had changed considerably since he soloed to victory in that race back in 2020. Yes, the course is longer and more demanding – hence 2021 winner Van der Poel’s absence – but the Pogačar factor has also limited Van Aert’s horizons in the Classics. He was a distant 10th on Saturday, even if he was upbeat about his sensations afterwards.

Van Aert will look to build on that at Tirreno-Adriatico, and the punchy terrain and lack of a summit finish means that he could shine across all seven stages. He will also be charged with helping Visma | Lease a Bike teammate Matteo Jorgenson’s GC challenge, with the American lining up here after two successive Paris-Nice wins. 

Every pedal stroke counts as Van Aert draws closer to the weekends that define his season – and his legacy.