Ever since Tadej Pogačar won the Tour de France, his subsequent decision to turn down the chance to go for his fourth Grand Tour victory in two seasons and tackle the Vuelta a España has logically dominated a lot of the summer cycling headlines.
However, the most notable development year-on-year in the 2025 Vuelta is not Pogačar's absence. Rather, it's that another Slovenian star, present every year in the Vuelta since 2019, winning four of them and taking third in another, will this time be missing from the Vuelta's Turin start on Saturday, August 23.
