The China Mail - Tour of Switzerland set to showcase Pogacar's pre-Tour de France form

The Slovenian is such an overwhelming favourite for victory in the five-day race that the question on everyone's lips is not who will win, but rather what shape will he be in.

"Training has gone very well, both individually and as a team," he said ominously.

"And I'm arriving at the Tour of Switzerland feeling strong and motivated," he added with the opening stage on Wednesday.

Pogacar has opted for an unusually light workload in the build-up to the Tour de France and has had only 11 race days so far this year, with five more to come this week.

By contrast, his main Tour challenger, Jonas Vingegaard, has had 36 already, having won the Giro d'Italia, Paris-Nice and the Tour of Catalonia.

The light workload has not seemed to have affected Pogacar's brilliance -- he has picked up nine victories in his 11 race days, compared to just seven over 36 for Vingegaard.

And Pogacar will surely end the week in Switzerland with at least a couple more.

But what also remains to be seen is his weight.

The 27-year-old put on a few kilogrammes ahead of the Spring Classics season to prepare for the punishing cobbles in the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix -- where he won the first before Wout van Aert pipped him in a sprint at the second.

He will have to shed those kilos by the time the Tour begins in two-and-a-half weeks' time.

- Unbeaten since 2021 -

The UAE Team Emirates XRG rider has not raced since early May, when the Tour de Romandie finished, and it was clear he was not at his best.

He still won four stages and the overall title, but what was noticeable was that Pogacar did not manage to blow away his rivals as he is accustomed too.

His winning margin over German Florian Lipowitz, who was third in last year's Grande Boucle, was just 42 seconds, and more than half of that came from time bonuses.

When they went man-to-man on the road, there was only one stage where Pogacar managed to distance Lipowitz on a climb, and even then he snared just 14 seconds.

By contrast, Lipowitz was 1min30sec off Vingegaard in finishing third in Catalonia, and 2min30sec behind teenage French sensation Paul Seixas in a second-placed finish at the Tour of the Basque Country.

Pogacar has had about six weeks of rest and preparation since Romandie.

"We've had a good block of training done at altitude over the past few weeks," he said.

He has not been beaten in a week-long stage race since the 2021 Tour of the Basque Country, where he was third behind five-time Grand Tour-winner Primoz Roglic and Vingegaard.

Slovenian Roglic, 36, is one of the few potential rivals for Pogacar in Switzerland, although he has not won a race in over a year since the 2025 Tour of Catalonia and looks well past his best.

Briton Tom Pidcock has had some great results this year and has had sufficient time to recover from his crash into a ravine in Catalonia in March.

But he has never won a major stage race and like Roglic will likely be battling for second place, alongside former Giro d'Italia champion Richard Carapaz and Bahrain Victorious pair Antonio Tiberi and Lenny Martinez.

U.Chen--ThChM