As Jonas Vingegaard closes in on victory at the 2026 Giro d’Italia he looks set to join an exclusive club of riders who have won all three Grand Tours. And, the cherry on top of this achievement will be the fact that he’ll beat Tadej Pogačar to getting his name on that list. If, in fact, the Slovenian ever will.
If he lifts the Trofeo Senza Fine at the end of the Giro’s final stage in Rome, the Dane will become the eighth male rider to have won all three Grand Tours in his career. This after winning the Tour de France in 2022 and 2023 and the Vuelta a España in 2025.
The first rider to land all three titles was Jacques Anquetil, the Frenchman who conquered all through the late 50s and early 60s had to wait until 1963 to win the Vuelta – ten years into his pro career. However, comparisons are made more difficult by the fact the Vuelta was a 15-day race at that time.
By the time Felice Gimondi won the Vuelta in 1968 to become the second rider to win all three, the Spanish tour had increased to 18 stages (two of them split stages). Even by the time Bernard Hinault added himself to the list, the Vuelta was just 19 days long. Two short of a now-standard 21-stage Grand Tour.
|
Rider |
Giro d’Italia victories |
Tour de France victories |
Vuelta a España victories |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Jacques Anquetil (Fra) |
1960, 1964 |
1957, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 |
1963 |
|
Felice Gimondi (Ita) |
1967, 1969, 1976 |
1965 |
1968 |
|
Eddy Merckx (Bel) |
1968, 1970, 1972, 1973, 1974 |
1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1974 |
1973 |
|
Bernard Hinault (Fra) |
1980, 1982, 1985 |
1978, 1979, 1981, 1982, 1985 |
1978, 1983 |
|
Alberto Contador |
2008, 2015 |
2007, 2009 |
2008, 2012, 2014 |
|
Vincenzo Nibali (Ita) |
2013, 2016 |
2013, 2016 |
2010 |
|
Chris Froome (GBr) |
2018 |
2013, 2015, 2016, 2017 |
2011, 2017 |
Spaniard Alberto Contador was the first to win three, 21-stage Grand Tours after winning the 2008 Giro d’Italia and Vuelta, having previously won the Tour in 2007. The only five-time winner of the Tour de France not to appear on the list is Miguel Indurain. The Spaniard won the Tour five times in a row between 1991 and 1995, and in two of those years, won the Giro when it was still possible to use the Italian Grand Tour in preparation for the Tour.
Much to the frustration of the Spanish fans and organisers, Indurain never mounted a serious challenge for the Vuelta, often cutting his season short after the Tour unless there was a world or Olympic title in his sights.
No rider has ever won all three Grand Tours in the same year, although three of them have held all three titles concurrently, split over two calendar years.
Eddy Merckx won the 1972 Giro and Tour, then won the 1973 Vuelta, which started in late April
Bernard Hinault held all three titles, starting with the Giro and Tour double in 1982, and then taking the springtime Vuelta in 1983
Chris Froome achieved the feat across the 2017 and 2018 seasons, first winning the Tour and Vuelta (by now in it’s late summer spot on the calendar) and the Giro in the spring of 2018. That was to be his final Grand Tour win after teammate Geraint Thomas beat him to the 2018 Tour title before a career-defining crash at the 2019 Criterium du Dauphine put an end to Froome’s time as a GC contender.
|
Rider |
Giro d’Italia Women victories |
Tour de France Femmes victories |
La Vuelta Feminina victories |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Annemiek van Vleuten (Ned) |
2018, 2019, 2022, 2023 |
2022 |
2021, 2022, 2023 |
Only one female rider has won all three titles, and she did it in one season. Annemiek van Vleuten did the treble in 2022 starting with victory at the Giro Donne in early July, and followed that up by taking the inaugural Tour de France Femmes Avec Zwift at the end of the month.
In September she then won the five-stage Madrid Challenge by La Vuelta. There is debate whether or not this was a genuine Grand Tour due to it’s length. The race is now seven stages long. Female riders have had far few opportunities to win the treble, with the Tour de France Femmes only returning in 2022 after a 13-year hiatus and the Vuelta starting as a one-day race in 2015 and gradually growing from there.
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