FILE PHOTO: Tour de France champion Tadej Pogacar speaks on stage during welcome ceremony in Ljubljana, Slovenia, July 24, 2024. REUTERS/Antonio Bronic/File Photo
(Reuters) -Cycling titans Tadej Pogacar and Jonas Vingegaard will go head to head in a new format when they take part in the inaugural Andorra Cycling Masters race this month.
The four-rider event, also featuring Primoz Roglic and Isaac del Torro, will comprise of an 8km uphill time trial on the Coll de la Gallina before a 32km urban duel in the heart of Andorra la Vella and Escaldes Engordany.
With no team back-up and no peloton to hide in, the format is designed to pit four of the best riders in the world against each other in a unique environment.
For Slovenian Pogacar it will be the chance to complete a remarkable season in which he claimed a fourth Tour de France victory and retained his world road title while Denmark's Vingegaard won this year's Vuelta a Espana and is regarded as the main rival to Pogacar's domination of men's cycling.
The October 19 event, which is not an official UCI-sanctioned race, will also offer behind-the-scenes footage that will form a documentary to be released at the end of the year.
Organiser David Quintana said it will be a rare chance for fans to watch Pogacar and Vingegaard going wheel to wheel, especially on the multi-lap street race.
"The idea was to put four of the very best riders together but without teams and so on, racing directly against each other," he told Cycling News.
"That way the public could see who, each season, is the champion of champions."
(Reporting by Martyn Herman, editing by Ed Osmond)
