Two-Time World Champion: What the Rainbow Jersey Really Means to a Grand Tour Rider

One Rainbow Jersey, Two Seasons

In the world of road cycling, the winner of the World Championship road race receives a rainbow jersey and wears it in road races for the entire following year. It is the most recognizable garment in the sport—even more so than the yellow jersey, because the yellow jersey is only worn during the three weeks of the Tour de France; the rainbow jersey is worn for over three hundred days.

Tadej Pogačar won his first career World Championship road race title in 2024 and successfully defended it in 2025. It may look like just one more title, but these two years represent achievements of completely different natures.

2024: The Rainbow Jersey Was the Final Piece of the Triple Crown

In 2024, Pogačar completed the so-called “Triple Crown”—winning the Giro d’Italia, the Tour de France, and the World Championship road race in the same year.

He became only the 3rd rider in history to do so.

Why is it so difficult? Because these three goals conflict with one another:

First, you fight through three weeks in May, then another three weeks in July—meaning your entire summer is spent at the limit. By autumn, most Grand Tour riders’ bodies are already on the decline, yet the World Championships demand a completely different skill set: a one-day race offers no second chance and no accumulated time gaps to claw back slowly—one misjudgment and it’s over.

2025: Defending the Title Is Rarer Than Winning It the First Time

If 2024 proved he could peak at exactly the right moment, the 2025 defense proved he could preserve that peak.

And the significance of 2025 goes one step further: Pogačar became the first rider in history to defend both the Tour de France overall title and the World Championship road race title in the same year.

Why is holding both jerseys in the same year so rare?

1. The timeline is too long. From the Tour de France in July to the World Championships in autumn, several weeks pass in between, requiring extremely precise form management—let up too early and you can’t get it back; don’t rest at all and you’ll be overtired.
2. Racing in the rainbow jersey means being publicly marked. Everyone in the peloton can see exactly where you are, and any attack is immediately responded to.
3. The World Championships use a national team format. Your usual trade team teammates may be your opponents, and the available manpower and chemistry differ from normal, drastically reducing the margin for tactical error.

In the same year, he also took his first career European Championship road race title. In other words, in the autumn of 2025, he swept nearly the entire list of one-day championship titles.

What the Rainbow Jersey Means for a Grand Tour Rider

Historically, there has been a common division of labor: riders who excel at three-week Grand Tours rarely go after the World Championships, because the two demand different body types, abilities, and seasonal rhythms; while riders who excel at one-day races usually can’t survive the accumulated mountain stages of three weeks.

Pogačar’s back-to-back titles break exactly that division-of-labor assumption. This is why he is often compared to all-rounders like Eddy Merckx and Bernard Hinault, and has become the most central name in the GOAT debate.

In other words, the rainbow jersey means more to him than just “one more title”—it is a public proof of his range of capabilities: he is not a time-trial-style GC rider who grinds opponents down over three weeks, but an attacking rider who can drop everyone in the final 30 kilometers of a one-day race.

An Analogy for Taiwanese Riders: Three-Week Type vs. One-Day Type

Cycling activities in Taiwan can broadly be divided into these two categories:

• One-day type: King of the Mountain races, single-day long-distance events—about releasing all your form in a single day.
• Multi-day type: Round-island tours, consecutive days of mountain routes—about being able to get up and go every day.

Most people find they clearly lean toward one side: some are strong on a single day but completely destroyed the next, while others are steady day after day but can never open a gap. The value of the two consecutive World Championship titles lies in proving that these two traits can coexist in the same person—although that person is an elite professional rider and we can’t replicate it, the direction is something we can reference.

If you want to balance both, the practical approach is usually to first build a solid “don’t break down over multiple days” foundation (aerobic base, fueling discipline, sleep), then add high-intensity intervals 6 to 10 weeks before your event. This is just a common general practice; individual differences are large, so progress gradually according to your own condition and don’t jump up in volume all at once.

Summary

• The 2024 rainbow jersey was the final piece of the Triple Crown—only the 3rd rider in history.
• The 2025 rainbow jersey marked the first time in history that both titles were defended in the same year.
• Together, the two give a Grand Tour overall champion consecutive possession of the highest honor in one-day racing.

A rainbow jersey is worn for one year; two in a row means putting your name on two full years.

Related Reading

• The 2024 Triple Crown: The First in 37 Years, the Year Pogačar Wrote Himself into Cycling History
• The 2025 Double Defense: The First Time Pogačar Held Both the Tour and the Rainbow Jersey in the Same Year
• The UCI World Championship Rainbow Jersey: The Weight and Pressure of Glory in Wearing the Stripes
• Road World Championship Strategy: The One-Day Tactical Chess Game of the Rainbow Jersey